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THROUGH SCIENCE 
TO FAITH 



BY 



^ 



NEWMAN SMYTH 



Knowing that Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her 
I / Wordsworth 

II 






NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1902 



THE LIBBARY Qf 

GOt'GRESS. 
Two Oop«s8 Receive* 

FEB. g 1902 

0«»VRK»HT ENTRY 

CLASS ^XXa N«. 

c«PY a 



^u^^ 






Copyright, 1902 
By Charles Scribner's Sons 



Published^ February, 1902 



UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



Xi^ 



if 



PREFACE 

This volume contains a course of lectures whicli were 
given before the Lowell Institute in Boston during the 
winter months of 1900-1901. It was their object to 
answer the inquiry whether, through the science of the 
century which was then passing away, the coming age 
might enter into richer possession of the spiritual 
faiths which have been man's heritage through all the 
centuries. 

Modern science is a new appeal to nature. Our in- 
herited religious faiths cannot maintain their power, 
and they ought not to survive, if they fail to accept 
fully nature's answer to the latest appeal of our sci- 
ence, and if they do not search diligently for the true 
interpretation of new disclosures of life. The teachers 
of divinity to the coming age will need, as an essential 
element of the instruction in schools of theology, a 
working knowledge of modern methods of scientific 
inquiry. For the assurance of faith cannot be main- 
tained from a fortified critical position outside the 
province of the evolutionary science ; it may be won 
by positive participation in the work of the scientific 
world. Some acquaintance especially with biological 
studies and results should be made a required part of 
any thorough education for the modern ministry of the 



vi PREFACE 

word of life. In this promising direction of inquiry 
the younger ministry may find from the following chap- 
ters some suggestive aid for their further studies. 

This book is not intended for teachers only, but more 
generally for readers who would inform themselves con- 
cerning the scope and tendencies of the evolutionary 
science since Darwin's time, especially in its relation to 
our most cherished human faiths and hopes. We have 
had enough, indeed, of too hastily conclusive and often 
unverified popular articles concerning the religious 
teachings of modern science ; there is need of pains- 
taking and appreciative sifting of the results of modern 
investigations of nature in order that we may under- 
stand their real bearing upon the highest problems of 
human concern. To many persons who are too busy 
to search for themselves among the strictly scientific 
sources of knowledge, but who also are too thoughtful 
not to be interested in such inquiries, this volume may 
come as an endeavor to meet this need. 

As the lectures, which are here revised for publica- 
tion, were originally prepared for a general audience, 
technical expressions and too detailed scientific discus- 
sions have been avoided; but for the aid of students 
who may wish to pursue these inquiries further, and 
with critical minuteness at various points, numerous 
references to scientific authorities and contributions 
have been added in the foot-notes. Many of the articles 
cited contain full summaries of the literature of the 
subjects to which they refer. 

To scientific investigators, likewise, — the author 
ventures to hope — it may not seem a useless or un- 



PREFACE yii 

welcome endeavor, if a guest in their laboratories and 
an admirer of their patient and ingenious researches, 
would take the accepted results of their inquiries, and 
seek to understand and interpret them in their larger 
relations to the outlying realm of human thought and 
life. He trusts that this book — the fruitage in his 
religious thinking of seeds gathered from their fields — 
may be received in scientific circles as a grateful recog- 
nition, from the theological side, of the value of faithful 
scientific work not only to the material welfare of the 
world, but also for the higher moral and spiritual life 
of men. 

I would mention my personal indebtedness for aid in 
the laboratory, and for valuable suggestions, to Professor 
S. I. Smith, and to Dr. W. R. Coe of the Sheffield Sci- 
entific School of Yale University; and readers of this 
volume will be indebted also with me to Dr. Coe for his 
very excellent drawings of the diagrams which illus- 
trate the contents of that most wonderful thing in the 
world, the living cell, and the fascinating mystery of 
its process of self-division and multiplication. 

NEWMAN SMYTH. 
New Haven, Conn., Jan. 1, 1902. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

Page 

The N^ew Point of View 1 



CHAPTER II 
Evolution as Revelation 25 

CHAPTER in 
The Fact of Direction in JSTature 50 

CHAPTER IV 
Direction in the History of Living Cells .... 68 

CHAPTER V 
Intelligent Character of Direction in Nature . . 95 

CHAPTER VI 
Moral Character of Direction in Nature . . . . 116 

CHAPTER VII 
The Significance of the Beautiful 133 

CHAPTER VIII 
The Coming of the Individual 160 



X CONTENTS 



CHAPTER IX 

Page 

Retrogression in Evolution and Man's Fall . . . 193 



CHAPTER X 
Restoration in Evolution 205 

CHAPTER XI 
The Principle of Completion 228 

CHAPTER Xn 
The Prophetic Value of Unfinished Nature . . . 250 



IXDEX 277 



THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 



THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 



CHAPTER I 

THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 

Nearly two centuries ago a young man, who had 
begun to study divinity, wrote to a theologian, " I 
design the search after truth as the business of my 
life." Some decades later in the same century an- 
other young man who had recently published his thesis 
as a doctor of medicine wrote to an older man who had 
become a chief scientific authority of his time, these 
words concerning the common object of their pursuit: 
" This is your view, also, glorious man. We are inves- 
tigating for truth only ; we seek that which is true. 
Why then should I contend with you ? " 

The first youth who at school proposed to make truth 
the business of his life, afterwards became known as 
Bishop Butler, the author of that famous Analogy 
which far down into our own time has been used as 
a text-book in our colleges, and which has proved a 
noble discipline to many minds in search for truth. 
The other student, Caspar Friedrich Wolff, who had 
questioned in his thesis the prevalent biology of his 
day, succeeded in finding truth which has entered into 
the science of the present age. The common desire to 



2 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

follow after truth only, which was manifested by the 
theologian and the biologist, is the spirit in which all 
inquiries into nature and divinity should be made. 
Their agreement in the pure love of truth near the 
beginning of the modern era of investigation may be 
regarded as a happy omen of some future harmony of 
all science and religion. It is in this spirit that w^e are 
to seek again and again to interpret nature. Distrust 
of nature's fact were unbelief in nature's God. We 
must follow the course of nature, if we would know 
how the living One has gone before us in the way. 

During the century just ended two epochs in the 
relation of science and faith, broadly speaking, may be 
distino-uished ; and a third and better era is dawnins: 
at another century's beginning. The first period was 
one of religious alarm and scientific conflict. The 
appearance of Darwin's books on the Origin of Species 
and the Descent of Man, was accepted as a challenge to 
the then prevalent religious view of the creation, and 
a period of warfare ensued. That was one era, and it 
was followed by another, which may be described as the 
time of truce between scientific writers and theologians. 
There has been of late years a period of compromise 
between science and religion. Naturalists have learned 
to avoid needless collision with man's religious faiths, 
and theologians have become careful so to state their 
beliefs as to avoid conflict with scientific theories. 
This has been largely a negative and critical era. But 
the tliird epoch is coming — it is already come ; it 
follows naturally after the eras of conflict and of com- 
promise. It is the age of reconstruction. It is to be 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 3 

a positive era, a productive age, requiring for its task 
no longer the agitator or the obstructionist, the icono- 
clastic scientist or the controversial divine ; but it calls 
for deeper investigations and for larger interpretations 
both from its science and its faith. 

The older natural theology, in which but a generation 
ago Christian faiths might still find safe and comfort- 
able shelter, has become uninhabitable ; the new is yet 
to be built. The materials for it are already abundant 
and rich. Fresh inquiries are inviting; larger vistas 
are opening; nature is becoming more spiritually fas- 
cinating even to the scientific lover of her truth. Par- 
ticularly during the last half of the past century has 
science made a vast contribution to our knowledge of 
living nature. Biology has opened up a marvellous 
field for exploration which before had been almost an 
unknown land. 

Our science, it is true, must still strike midway into 
the path of life on the earth. We cannot go back to 
some distant and lowly point and say, There was the 
beginning of all. Nor can we say on any visible height 
of being. This is the end of all. Our knowledge in its 
utmost extension is of intermediate things. But it is 
true knowledge so far as it goes. Midway, and for 
some distance, we have followed with scientific care 
the course of life far enough to know something of its 
direction from the distant past and of its possible ten- 
dencies beyond our present experience. In this knowl- 
edge of life and its history, the larger part of which has 
been gained during the closing decades of the century, 
a new point of view has been won. From it all our 



4 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

natural and Christian faiths are to be resurveyed. They 
are to be observed anew from higher ground and in 
larger horizons. We have learned from a century's 
science that we are no longer to think of the world 
and its Maker under Paley's familiar similitude of a 
watch and its designer; for we now know that things 
have not been put together in nature as an artisan 
would assemble the several parts of a machine ; we 
have now to consider all things around us, and the 
constellations in the skies, as One of old taught tlie 
disciples to consider the lilies, how they grow. For 
the new science of nature is a study of the method of 
its growth. It is characterized in general by the word 
evolution. But that word is far too elastic to serve 
as a scientifically definitive term. An assortment of 
diverse views may be bound up by it as by a rubber 
band. It may cover alike much science and consider- 
able ignorance. It may be employed generally to desig- 
nate the modern scientific conception of nature ; and it 
may be used precisely to designate a special and now 
outgrown view of the creation which obtained over a 
hundred years ago, — the view that all creatures pre- 
existed in miniature in the Qgg^ or were preformed in 
the germ. No close thinker can define his position 
now by a word which has been so overworked. We 
may all call ourselves evolutionists, and speak popu- 
larly of the evolution of everything under the sun ; the 
real question would remain, what kind of evolutionists 
are we ? 

The new point of view might be characterized still 
generally as the biological conception. Biology is the 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 5 

science, almost the new science of living matter. It 
includes comprehensively all investigations of the pro- 
cesses, forces, conditions, and laws, which may be 
known in the organic world. In its larger scope, and 
in relation to the outlying problems of life, it passes 
into a philosophy of the living world. Herbert 
Spencer's Principles of Biology^ for instance, constitute 
a part of his system of philosophy. If we find that our 
modern biology has discovered any ruling ideas in the 
organic realm, and if it has followed them far enough 
through the history of life to be sure of them, we should 
take such principles of life up into our philosophy, and 
use them in our effort to become masters of the world 
in our thought of it. Spiritual mastery of the world, 
we may be sure, cannot be won except by discovery 
and use of the actual principles which run through 
nature. 

In this discussion of questions which lead up to the 
higher interpretation of life we shall start from the 
naturalist's point of view. It shall be our purpose to 
seek, especially among recent biological materials, for 
signs and evidences of the constitutive principles of 
nature ; and through these, so far as they may be re- 
vealed, to find some surer and clearer interpretation of 
our life. Our method will be a simple, but positive 
method. We shall not seek to adapt science to religion, 
or to impose faith upon science. We shall seek to learn 
first from the biologists the significant facts which they 
have observed. Secondly, we shall accept and make 
the most of their theories or explanations of the observed 
facts, so far as they may be made to go. Then, thirdly, 



6 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

we shall inquire for ourselves, what may be their higher 
and larger significance for our rational and religious 
conception of the world. We shall thus hope in a 
positive method, and not merely by a critical marking 
time, to make a fresh start at least in the way towards 
a more scientifically spiritual understanding of the 
creation — of its underlying unity, of its informing 
principles, of its real continuities through all its 
spheres, and of its possible completions beyond our 
present knowledge. 

At the outset we would emphasize the vital religious 
importance of the new inquiries into nature which may 
now be conducted in this method. If at times such 
scientific excursions may seem to lead into regions 
remote from our practical interest in life, they will be 
found to return ere long with some fresh contribution 
to our personal creeds for the conduct of life. For our 
present endeavor will be much more than a temporizing 
effort, such as the theologians have so often made, to 
arrange some common terms in which science and faith 
may dwell amicably together, like boarders in the same 
house. We shall seek rather to learn and to own 
their natural relationship. We would bring to mutual 
recognition principles in which they have a common 
heritage. If there are such ^principles, and we may 
know them, — constitutive and vital principles which run 
up and down through all nature and life, from the least 
and lowliest to the heights of being and of destiny — 
strong, infrustable principles, upon which as on in- 
visible but continuous laws all the spheres are threaded ; 
— then surely these principles are the great powers of 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 1 

nature and of life for us to lay hold of with a firm 
religious trust. We can build our highest religious 
faiths safely, if we may build them on the sure foun- 
dations of nature. 

On the very threshold, however, of such inquiry, we 
are met by two difficulties which seem at first sight to 
bar oar way in this direction. One of these obstacles 
lies in the admitted fact that biology is itself an im- 
mature science, — almost the youngest of the whole 
family of the modern sciences. It is hardly twenty-five 
years since it became a well equipped working science, 
and it is not yet half-endowed in our Universities. 
The name compounded for one of its chief branches 
of investigation, Cytology, or the science of the living 
cell, is almost an unknown term even to the educated 
public. Moreover, in the current numbers of the 
biological magazines, not only do different theories 
come into frequent collisions, but also the investigators 
do not always report that they have seen precisely the 
same things through their microscopes. Many im- 
portant facts in the behavior of living cells are not 
well known as yet, and indeed living nature sometimes 
seems to have an almost feminine power of becoming 
most fascinatingly elusive just when a man is most eager 
for some decisive manifestation of her meaning. Many 
biological views which attract attention must still be 
regarded as tentative. No one theory of heredity can 
claim as yet general acceptance. The domain of life is 
too large and wonderful, and the processes of nature are 
too subtly involved in the whole spiritual mystery of 
being to be easily comprehended within some single and 



8 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

simple formula, which some over-confident investigator 
may propose as the solution of the whole matter. 

Nowhere more than in the biological field is there 
need of that virtue which Dr. Chalmers so happily 
characterized as the modesty of true science. The 
present attitude of our ablest investigators in this field 
of research is one characterized by much reserve and 
hesitancy of judgment. And when all possible in- 
ferences seem to have been drawn from the known 
facts, the only way of progress is to return to new 
investigations. These are being made in our biological 
laboratories by many and most skilful observers. Not 
long since a fresh student in one of these laboratories 
brought to his work a blank note-book, the alternate 
pages of which were neatly labelled "observations," 
and "philosophical deductions from observations." His 
professor told him that the division was right, but that 
he thought he would need far less space for his philo- 
sophical deductions. Biology at the present time is 
mainly engaged in making observations. But obser- 
vations must in time be arranged under some idea, 
fertilized, as it were, by some stimulating thought, if 
they are to be made fruitful ; and the philosopher with 
his ideas and interpretations naturally follows the in- 
vestigator. It is his task to institute what might be 
called the higher criticism of science. Interpretative 
biology may be called the higher biology. The two 
should not be confounded, — the work of the single-eyed 
observer, and the task of the rational interpreter ; but 
each serves the other, and the work of both is necessary 
to a complete scientific and rational conception of nature 
and life. 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 9 

The present confessed uncertainty of much biological 
science may teach us caution, and keep us from vent- 
uring our faiths too largely out upon any prevalent 
theory of life ; but, nevertheless, the effort to think bio- 
logically, that is, to think under biological forms of 
conception and in relation to biological principles, is 
now a possible mode of thought, and it is justified by the 
knowledge which has been alreadj^ won. For notwith- 
standing all uncertainties many important facts of bio- 
logy are well ascertained, and certain processes of living 
matter have been followed with definite observations, so 
that vital principles to some extent may be deduced 
from our present biological knowledge. By means also 
of the different theories, with which investigators are 
seeking to light up the field of life, we may follow 
more intelligently and confidently the rational ways 
along which nature from her lowly origins has been led 
with ever increasing spiritual ascendency up to the 
heights of man's being, and his life of free thought and 
love. In short evolution as a general conception of the 
world and of the methods of life, within the past fifty 
years of scientific observation, has advanced fully far 
enough to require now and to justify the construction 
of a new natural theology ; and that in its turn will lead 
to some reconstruction of Christian theology. 

We offer therefore no further justification for our 
task than this, that it is now possible to attempt it, and 
that its achievement is greatly to be desired. 

The other difficulty which has been raised, is inde- 
pendent of the extent, greater or less, of our scientific 
knowledge; it is an objection which would be always 



10 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

fatal to this endeavor, if at any time it were true. It is 
said that there is an impassable gulf fixed between the 
natural and the spiritual spheres, and that we cannot 
reason from the one to the other. Fanciful analogies, 
or illuminative imaginations, it is admitted, may be 
drawn from the natural for the help of man's spiritual 
thought ; but it is asked, can any true analogy, or real 
continuity of principles, be followed from tlie lower 
spheres straight through the ascending orders of nature 
up to the very higliest and into the spiritual world? 
Curiously enough this question has been raised, and 
this obstacle is put in our way, both in the name of sci- 
ence and of religion. Coming from opposite directions 
and proceeding to different conclusions, some scientific 
students and some spiritual philosophers meet for the 
moment at this common point, and unite in warning off 
any attempt to reason either up or down from the nat- 
ural to the spiritual. Leave to us, say the former, our 
science, and we will leave to you, as beyond our ken, your 
faith. Attempt to connect the two, and you will only suc- 
ceed in confusing science, and introducing doubt into the 
domain of faith. And some of the latter, the philosophers 
and theologians, likewise, will go on their separate way, 
quite content to affirm that man stands wholly apart in 
the creation, and that his supreme individuality is not 
to be understood as nature's grand climax. Thus in 
this particular these two find themselves for the moment 
in agreement, — the naturalist who holds his science 
wholly apart from his faith, and the theologian who 
holds his faith regardless of any science. Both fail to 
discern the underlying unity of the creation. 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 11 

The question thus brought before us is this : Is the 
created universe one order, and has it come to pass in 
one process of development ? Or does it consist of sep- 
arate realms, such as the inorganic and the organic, 
matter and mind, the natural and the spiritual, which 
are not bound together in any process of development ? 
Are we to regard the creation as a process still going 
on, like an unfinished drama, or are the worlds and all 
things therein to be looked upon as a collection of 
ready-made products of all kinds and sizes, like a vast 
department store ? If we take the answer from science 
and say. Nature is not a patchwork, its parts and colors 
artificially matched and fitted into some semblance of 
design; nature is a continuous weaving of subtle but 
unbroken threads ; if, in a word, we say evolution ; then 
the further question immediately arises, In what does 
its unity consist? What Haeckel in the title of his 
last book calls the Riddle of the Universe^ is not the 
simple riddle of one soulless substance which he thinks 
it is in his drear denial of all divinity ; the problem, the 
ultimate mechanical and spiritual problem of the uni- 
verse, is a double problem, partly scientific, and partly 
philosophic, partly a question of fact, and partly a ques- 
tion of interpretation : Is the world one, and. How is it 
one ? 

In this introductory chapter we take as the point of 
departure for the subsequent inquiry the scientific belief 
that nature is one. Evidences of this fundamental 
postulate will appear as we shall proceed. The answer 
to the question, How is it one ? is the interpretation of 
the world which in the course of our inquiries we are to 



12 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

seek from the nature-process itself. As our immediate 
object is to make clear the starting-point, we may sketch 
here, more with an etcher's lines than with a detailed 
description, the new view of nature as one process of 
development. 

From the scientific side the presumption has become 
immense that there have been no real breaks in the 
evolution of the heavens and the earth. Apparent gaps 
there may be, which no knowledge of ours can fill up ; 
but there is no fissure anywhere that runs clear through 
to the foundation of the world. Because we cannot 
see the bottom of a chasm, however we may peer into 
its depths, it does not follow that it is a bottomless 
abyss. We may not repeat in any scientific account of 
things the story so often told in local traditions of the 
lake which has no bottom. That simply means that no 
man as yet may have brought a long enough line to 
find it. Nature, our science now knows enough to 
affirm, undergirds the worlds with her strong continu- 
ities. This first article of scientific faith in the unity of 
things relates specifically to their genetic oneness, — 
their unity, that is, of descent. The creation is genet- 
ically one — one in its birth and growth. 

We may appreciate the conclusive force of this belief 
in the unity of the world around us, if we review the dis- 
coveries of the relationships between things which have 
been made during the course of the past century's science. 

One of the first of these disclosures of the unity of 
the world is known as the law of the conservation of 
energy. It is not poetry only which bids us regard all 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 13 

things as " blossomings of one tree " ; it is sober scien- 
tific physics which teaches us to find a constant sum 
of energy through all its ceaseless transformations. 
There is one energy commutable into the different 
forms of energy of the physical world, and the same 
always in its quantity (within any closed system). In 
other words, nature tickets no form of energy as not 
transferable, and good for this passage only ; and in 
nature's continuous working no energy seems wasted or 
lost. This discovery of the unity of energy is the 
most fruitful conception which has been introduced 
into physical science. The first comprehensive state- 
ment of the law of conservation of energy was published 
by Mohr in 1 837 ; but our knowledge of it is due not 
to the brilliant discovery of any one thinker, but rather 
to the accumulated science of all this modern time. 

Another signal discovery of unity has been made in 
the organic kingdom. In the year 1838 a botanist, 
Schleiden, showed that all plants are built up of certain 
simple structural units which he called cells, and he 
discovered that the origin of the plant life is from a 
single cell ; the succeeding year a physiologist, Schwann, 
found that the same observations were true of animals ; 
animal tissues likewise are built up of cells, and every 
animal life proceeds from an egg-cell. This was a 
most interesting discovery of the fundamental unity of 
all living nature. The original bricks, so to speak, used 
in building the vegetable and animal kingdoms, are sim- 
ilar, and the method of laying them is much the same. 
It is now demonstrated that there is no radical differ- 
ence, no fundamental distinction in kind, between the 
vegetable and the animal kingdoms. 



14 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

If you examine under a microscope a drop of water 
from a pool which is slightly colored with a diffused 
green, you will fmd within it as the cause of its green- 
ish tinge numbers of a small organism, called Euglena, 
which move rapidly about, often changing their form as 
they move ; which have spots of chlorophyll — the 
coloring matter of leaves — within their minute bodies, 
and which also may be seen under a high power of the 
microscope to have a mouth. They feed both as plants 
and animals feed, partly by means of their chlorophyll, 
and partly through their mouths, partly from inorganic 
matter, and partly from other living matter, feeding as 
plants by daytime in the sunshine, and as cannibals in 
the night. So this Euglena has been claimed by differ- 
ent naturalists as belonging both to the animal and the 
vegetable kingdom. It is hard to say whether the bot- 
anists or the zoologists may best claim it. Indeed our 
most skilled naturalists differ in their classification of 
several lowly organisms which present " a puzzling com- 
bination of animal and vegetable characters." " The 
important point," says Professor Parker, " for the stu- 
dent to recognize is that these boundaries are artificial, 
and that there are no scientific frontiers in nature." ^ 
The conclusion which our eminent American botanist, 
Professor Asa Gray, reached years ago, has been con- 
firmed by subsequent researches : " The fact is, that a 
new article has recently been added to the scientific 
creed, — the essential oneness of the two kingdoms of 
organic nature." ^ 

1 Elementary Biology, p. 182. 

2 Natural Science and Religion, p. 12. 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 15 

More recent researches have brought out even more 
curious similarities between plant and animal life than 
those resemblances in their methods of nutrition and in 
some points of their conduct which led to the establish- 
ment of this new article of the scientific creed. More- 
over, botanists are now saying that " the movements 
by which the parts of fixed plants assume and maintain 
through life their position, are due to the co-operation 
of organs of sensation and organs of motion." We are 
assured that there is " a sense of gravitation " in plants ; 
that the apex of a plant which turns towards the earth 
(geotropic), is " a percipient organ " ; that " a brain 
function " may be ascribed to the sensitive apex of the 
root ; and one observer claims to have traced " a con- 
tinuous fibrillar structure " in the substance of the cells 
(cytoplasm), by means of which stimuli may be trans- 
mitted in the motions of plants.-^ 

Man also is included in the unity of this structural 
plan. The Hebrew psalmist said of old in his childlike 
wonder : " Thine eyes did see mine unperfect substance, 
and in thy book were all my members written, which 
day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none 
of them." With no less wonder, the reverent eyes of 
science, through the partial lifting of the veil from the 
holy mystery of life's origins, may now see how that 
unperfect substance has been organized, and these 
members fashioned, even as lowliest plant has grown, 
and humblest creature has been formed from the proto- 

1 See Nature, August 15, 1901, p. 372 : Journal Roi/nl ]\fic. Soc, Aug. 
1901, p. 437. Also Dr. Francis Darwin's remarks at the meeting of the 
Britisli Association, 1901. B. NCmec, Die Reizleitum/ tend die rcizlcitenden 
Strukturen bei den PJlanzen. 



16 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

plasmic germ, and by the multiplying cell : we too are 
physiologically one, structurally and vitally one, with 
all living nature. When Saint P'rancis in his spiritual 
ecstasy went through the forests and the fields of sunny 
Italy calling the animals his brothers, and the birds his 
little sisters, he was far nearer than he knew to the sober 
truth of the great biological generalization of modern 
science that all living nature is of one descent and 
constitutes one relationship. 

When all this, however, has been admitted, the 
question will be raised : Are there not still left some 
wide gaps in nature across which science cannot throw 
any material bridge ? What shall be said of the differ- 
ence between life on the one side, and the inorganic 
world on the other? Has that fixed gulf been bridged 
by any chemist ? Can we analyze the vital phenomena 
of irritability, or of reproduction, or of adaptation 
entirely into physical and chemical processes ? Candid bi- 
ologists generally admit the present impossibility of such 
analysis. So the American authority. Professor Wilson, 
in agreement with similar utterances by a leading German 
embryologist. Professor Hertwig, leaves the matter at 
the conclusion of his exhaustive treatise on the Cell; 
" The study of the cell has on the whole seemed to widen 
rather than to narrow the enormous gap that separates 
even the lowest forms of life from the inorganic world." ^ 
But, nevertheless, modern biology teaches with general 
consent that there is an unbroken development from non- 
living to living nature, although the lines of connection 
between the two may lie beneath our sight. In weaving 

1 The Cell, p. 434. 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 17 

the garment of life nature has spun her threads very 
fine, and sometimes they may be too subtle for our 
clumsy fingers to unravel them ; but nevertheless nature, 
passing from the non-living to the living, has nowhere 
broken her thread, and the richly variegated pattern of 
life has been woven firmly into the woof of her inorganic 
strength. Biological science includes and affirms in its 
first article of genetic descent a belief in some natural 
relationship between the inorganic and the organic 
worlds. 

It will be admitted that life now does not proceed 
directly from inanimate dust ; that living creatures are 
not, as even some scholastic theologians once supposed, 
generated spontaneously from dead matter under existing 
conditions. Biology now goes still further and asserts 
not only that every life comes from some preceding life, 
but also and more minutely, that every living cell pro- 
ceeds from some pre-existing living cell, and that the 
germ-plasm — that is, the germinal matter of life — is 
continuous and possessed of an earthly immortality. But 
while the fact is universally admitted that non-living mat- 
ter cannot now be organized into a living form except 
through the prior agency of life, on the other hand the mo- 
mentum of all our scientific knowledge of the continuities 
of nature leads modern biology to the assumption that the 
organic substance at some time has been raised and 
quickened from the deadness of the inorganic world. 
When the right conditions were offered, when the ful- 
ness of the time for its advent was come, naturally, and 
without violence, as without observation, in the midst of 



18 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

the inorganic world the kingdom of life came.^ The 
same energy which had slowly fashioned and combined 
the molecules for life, at the appointed hour lifted them 
up into life. Such scientific faith in the evolution of the 
organic through the inorganic may impl}^, as we shall 
have occasion to argue later, the existence of some 
unknown or mathematically immeasurable factor in 
evolution. But we refer in this connection to the 
scientific belief that nature makes no break in becom- 
ing living nature, as a further sign of some real and 
fundamental unity of the world. At this point, like- 
wise, before this striking difference between life and 
inanimate things, the question — the only question which 
science leaves open — is not, Are these two one ? but. 
In what does their unity consist? As between the 
crystal and the living cell the problem is not. Are they 
related, but. What is the source and ground of their re- 
lationship ? This last question we shall discuss further 
on when we consider the higher interpretation of life. 

One characteristic of living matter, which will come 
before us later more fully among the signs of the spiritual 
significance of life, should be noted at this point, for it 
indicates the unity of evolution which science impels 
us to assume, while it compels us to seek for that 
unity deeper down than in any visible lines of its 
physical and chemical continuity. We refer to that char- 
acteristic of it which has been happily hit by Professor 
Shaler's phrase that living matter is educable matter ; - 

1 See Verworn, General Physiology, pp. 297 sq., for theories of the 
origin of life. 

2 The Individual, pp. 23 sq. 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 19 

that is, it is matter which has become capable of receiv- 
ing an education. It has acquired the power of contin- 
uously adapting itself to its changing conditions, and of 
improving itself. Protoplasm has learned to make " an 
adaptive response." ^ On the one hand, so close is the 
natural kinship between living and non-living matter 
that it is not easy to draw any hard and fast chemical or 
physical line of separation between the two j the differ- 
ences usually advanced are found on more intimate 
acquaintance not to hold. Living matter is still 
matter. But, on the other hand, this striking pecu- 
liarity, this newly acquired power and promise dis- 
tinguishes life from the beginning ; it is matter which 
has acquired capacity for self-adaptation and self-im- 
provement; it has capacity for education. Non-living 
matter cannot be trained through experience ; living 
matter can be ; it is matter selected and put into a 
course of training; it will profit by experience. A 
crystal will always crystallize in the same geometric 
forms ; an organism will change its form to make better 
use of its environment. Furthermore living organisms 
can give to successive generations their accumulating 
gains. But mineral salts through the ages will remain 
always the same mineral salts. A diamond cannot 
divide itself into two more valuable and brio^hter 
diamonds. Life can. Living matter is capable of con- 
tinued self-improvement. Animal life gains habit, 
and transmits tradition. It acquires in time clear 
adaptive intelligence. In brief, it is this capacity for 
intelligence, this receptivity and growth for the action 

1 Wilson, Tlie Cell, p. 433. 



20 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

and free play of adaptive intelligence, which above every- 
thing else distinguishes living matter. It has marked 
it from the beginning. And it crowns it at the end. 

How did organic matter in the course of nature ever 
acquire this educable quality? That is a fundamental 
biological question. It is more ; whatever may have 
been the method of the acquisition of this vital capacity, 
the fact that it has been acquired, compels an evolu- 
tionist to seek for some conception of the unity of nature 
deep enough and large enough to comprehend both the 
dead and the living. Otherwise the scientific evidence 
of the unbroken ascent of the organic from the inorganic 
world would be a confusion of thought. If we are to 
hold to evolution as the method of nature, our idea of 
evolution must be comprehensive enough to include all 
the facts, and to sum up in one their differences. 

There are two other apparent breaks in nature which 
theologians have been in the habit of regarding as un- 
bridged chasms in evolution, as though the supposed 
existence of such breaks were an aid to religious faith, 
and room must be left through gaps in nature for the 
living God to come in. How slow of faith we have 
been to learn that the Divine Spirit does not need to 
work through gaps. We may need to discover that the 
order of the universe may be the very mechanism for 
the divine Will. The fine continuities of nature shall 
prove to be the facile and magnetic lines for the energy 
of the Spirit. 

One of these supposed breaks, which the science of 
the century has found to be a closed circuit, is the 
evolution of animal intelligence. There has been one 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW ^1 

progressive growth of intelligence in connection with 
the development of living matter. 

At the bottom of the scale of animal sentiency, hardly 
a perceptible degree above the zero-point of intelligent 
life, we see the apparently aimless motions of an amoeba^ 
as that primitive speck of protoplasm may be watched 
nnder the microscope, throwing out now in this direc- 
tion, now in that, arm-like projections of its almost 
structureless lump of hving jelly, and another moment 
rolling its whole little self into a round ball. Near the 
top of the organic ascent, just below the critical point 
on the scale where intelligence becomes distinctly hu- 
man, we perceive the adaptive motions of the higher 
animals — the graceful bounds of a deer through the 
forest away from the hunter's aim, or the balancings of 
the eagle in its repose of airy flight, or the almost human 
responsiveness of the dog ; — and between these two, 
from the lowest organic sentiency to the highest animal 
intelligence, the way seems long and the distance im- 
measurable. These two, we might suppose, — • the irri- 
tability of an amoeba and the instinct of a bird in the 
sky, — nature never could have bound together by law 
of continuous growth ; but we know as a clear result of 
scientific searching that nature has bound them to- 
gether. It is one history of the coming of intelligence 
in the animal kingdom. We may accept, as scientifically 
put, Mr. Lloyd Morgan's inference from his studies of 
instinct, that " consciousness arises out of something 
associated with the material Qgg^ which, though not yet 
consciousness, develops into consciousness." ^ 

1 Habit and Insiinrt, p. 127. 



22 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Granting, however, that up to this point nature may 
have been one process, some thinkers, in the supposed 
interest of their souls, have taken a final stand upon 
Man's superior nature, and before the supreme fact 
of his intelligence they have said to an evolutionary 
science, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; 
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." But here 
likewise the answer from science will be : Yes ; Man's 
reason is the supernal Fact ; but in fulfilment of one 
law, out of the deeps of nature's vast mystery, there 
has been formed and exalted even that sublime verity 
of reason, which now has upon its summit the Spirit's 
transcendent light. 

If then we start, from the naturalist's point of view, 
we cannot set aside the tremendous scientific presump- 
tion that all nature, including life, animal sentiency, 
and man's intelligence, is one realm, one process, one 
book ; and as such it is to be studied and re-read now by 
true searchers for its truth. The interpretations of it 
for which the new natural theology must seek, will be 
found only by knocking first at the door of fact. 
Through the way often straight, and the gate often 
narrow of nature's fact, modern thought must enter, if 
at all, into its spiritual kingdom. 

We begin, therefore, by accepting clearly and posi- 
tively the great generalization of the nineteenth cen- 
tury's science ; viz., the genetic unity and the unbroken 
development of the Avhole realm of nature, to which we 
also belong. We shall seek to follow out several of 
the chief lines of its evolution, and to interpret their 
significance. We may thus learn anew, when we shall 



THE NEW POINT OF VIEW 23 

reach the conclusion, that in sober truth all nature is 
holy ground, and every "bush afire with God." We 
may gain a deeper insight into all life and history, if we 
shall discover that frora the beginning natural evolution 
has been more spiritually minded than we had thought. 
We may describe further our point of view, if we 
compare it with that taken by Mr. Drummond in his 
famous book on Natural Law in the Spiritual World. 
Mr. Drummond's critics have been quick to perceive 
the mistake into which his logic fell ; they have been 
slow of heart to perceive the truth which he saw. His 
error lay on the surface of his book in his assertion that 
the laws of the natural and the spiritual realms are 
identical. That is not true even of laws which obtain 
within different parts of the natural world. The laws 
of chemistry and of physics, for example, describe the 
modes of action of energy under different conditions, 
and a law or description of the one process will not 
answer for the other. But the truth beneath Mr. 
Drummond's error may be brought out by a simple 
illustration. We may say that a poem and also a yacht 
are beautiful. In what lies the resemblance ? Not in 
the laws of their construction. The poet in his verses, 
and the architect in his drawings, do not follow the 
same laws of construction. The lines of the ship are 
to be wrought in oak and iron according to their laws ; 
and the thoughts of the poet are to be expressed in airy 
words according to their harmonies. Yet each, the poet 
and the architect, produces a thing of beauty, and all 
beauty is one. It is the same delight which we have 
in it, under whatever form it may come to us. And 



24 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

beneath all the varying forms of the beautiful we may 
find similar principles of the beautiful. With differ- 
ences of laws according to the diversities in the materials 
used, the same ideas of loveliness, the same principle of 
the beautiful may take form, and find expression. It was 
an unnecessary mistake for Mr. Drummond to put at 
the foundation of all analogies an identity of laws. 
We need not do that to find one reason pervading the 
whole universe. But Mr. Drummond was right, he 
was profoundly right in his insight. The truth which 
he saw, which throughout his whole scientific and reli- 
gious work he sought to lead others to see, was the 
reality of the underlying spiritual unity of the world. 
In speaking of the origin of his book Mr. Drummond 
once said : " I am well aware that many see no such 
thread binding Nature and Grace. Others not only see 
no thread, but see no use in one. I can only say that 
for me there is no alternative but to see it. . . . Now a 
thing that we cannot help seeing must either be reall}^ 
there, or one's vision must have some constitutional 
defect." ^ Mr. Drummond had a sane mind, and there 
was no constitutional defect in his spiritually scientific 
vision. It is this truth, not of identical laws, but of 
certain grand unifying principles which run up and 
down throughout nature, and which make of all na- 
ture one glorious revelation, — it is this supreme truth 
toward which we now turn and look. 

1 Life, p. 160. 



CHAPTER II 

EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 

One of the first impressions which remains among 
almost the earliest recollections of our childhood, is 
the sense of wonder. The wonder of the world around 
us has not grown less with the years which have 
brought increasing knowledge. We looked as little 
children up into the blue sky, and at the great white 
clouds sailing across it, and wondered what it all 
was. With a wonder now into which are wrought 
our human joys and sorrows, we ask still, what does it 
all mean ? Modern science has swept the world clear 
of superstitions, and driven needless fears from the 
hearth of religion ; but it has brought the infinite mys- 
tery of things still more closely home to our human 
hearts. The real question for us at the height of the 
century's science is not, Is the universe a mystery? 
but. Is it a mystery of darkness, or of light? The 
mediseval poet Dante, whom love had led through the 
spheres to the gates of paradise, stood at last gazing 
into an infinite radiance, as though " Suddenly upon 
the day appeared a day new risen." If our science 
likewise may be led by some love of higher, ideal 
truth, it will make progress through the spheres of 
knowledge until it shall gain sonictliing like Dante's 

25 



26 THROUGH SCIESCE TO FAITH 

vision in the empyrean of the flood of light "replete 
with joT," "where G-od immediate rules/* The infinite 
universe may remain to finite mind a mystery; but it 
shall cease to seem as a loneliness of great darkness, 
and become as a mystery of the dawn, even as a day 
new risen on the day, while from its vistas of light 
beyond light come sweet and happy voices. 

As we would gain some word of life from nature's 
prophetic mystery, we must fii'st take heed how we are 
to hear it. If beneath these changing phenomena there 
is a Reality which we were made to know, how is it 
making itself known to us ? In other words, our first 
inquiiy is one concerning revelation and its natural 
method. It is an inquiry of prime speculative import- 
ance, and also of supreme practical moment to us, — 
What is the natural way of revelation ? In what man- 
ner, and by what signs, if at all, has the ultimate 
Reality revealed itself from out this mystery of the uni- 
verse around us ? How may it be revealing itself to us 
even now, if we have eyes to see it ? 

According to the method of study which has already 
been sketched, we are to seek for the answer to this in- 
quiry first in the facts of nature. We are to discover the 
method of revelation in the nature-process itself. Evo- 
lution, we are taught, is the method of creation; it is 
also the method of revelation. Evolution — the whole 
age-long course of it — has been a revelation. More 
significantly is this true of nature after it has been 
quickened into life : the evolution of living nature has 
been and is a revelation of the mystery which was 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 27 

hidden before the foundation of the world. It is awe- 
inspiring to follow this revelation of the glory of the 
dispensation of life from its beginning until now. One 
can read with reverent wonder the earliest prophetic 
records of this natural revelation, as the course of it may 
be followed in the development of cell-life. Indeed 
when a biologist puts upon a slide for his microscope 
thin sections which show the successive stages of the 
development of a cell, he has put upon that bit of glass 
the primal wonder of the whole living world. The 
germs and determinants, the predestination and the 
order, the potentialities and the promise of a whole 
living universe lie there for him — last development 
himself of them all — to peer into, and to think over, 
and to find out concerning them what he may. We 
envy not the mind of that investigator who, however 
familiar he may be with these processes of life, can look 
at them through his microscope without ever reverent 
thought. 

We begin with a description of this earliest revelation 
of life which is to be observed in the division and 
multiplication of the cell. We shall begin thus with 
the primal and simplest facts of natural revelation. To 
lay hold of the highest religious truths, Ave do well 
always to grasp them by their nearest ends.^ 

As we shall have repeated occasion to refer to the 
cell and its contents, it may be well at the outset to 
give a general account of it, and of what has been found 
within it. Eggs are now receiving a vast amount of 
scientific attention. Good eggs and bad eggs, healthy 

1 See the author's Personal Creeds. 



28 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

eggs and sick eggs, eggs growing normally, and eggs even 
artificially fertilized, some left to themselves to develop, 
and others twisted and shaken with laborious ingenuity, 
are become subjects now of close scientific scrutiny. 
Hundreds of keen eyes in many laboratories are peering 
into the secrets which still lie waiting to be found out 
in the living cell. Its fruitful stud}^ is indeed one of 
the last products of the past century's science. As long 
ago as the year 1600 the compound microscope was 
invented ; but the use made of it by its earlier possessors 
has been fitly characterized as a play of science rather 
than as productive work. Xot until the earlier years of 
the last century was some constructive idea gained of 
the unity and order of this new, curious microscopic 
world. Not until the last twenty-five years has cytol- 
ogy, the science of the cell, found a leading place 
among the sciences. 

The name cell is somewhat misleading. It naturally 
suggests a more or less spherical little body surrounded 
by a wall of some kind. But the cell, as biology knows 
it, does not always or necessarily have any outer cover- 
ing or enveloping membrane ; it may consist of a mere 
naked mass of protoplasm. A white blood corpuscle 
within your veins is a cell ; an amoeba, lowest of 
organisms, is a cell ; but although this dot of living 
matter may be without covering or wall, it will man- 
age to keep itself together, very much as a drop of oil 
may do in water. Living cells vary also very much in 
size; they are almost infinitesimal; but they may become 
as large, for instance, as a hen's Qgg-, which is a simple 
cell increased by a comparatively enormous amount of 
yolk spherules as well as by layers of albumen. 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 29 

When once the great generalization had been dem- 
onstrated that all plants and animals are composed of 
cells, and consequently that we must look ultimately to 
the cells of which they are formed to understand their 
nature and life-history; it v/as not long before more 
was discovered concerning these elementary corpuscles, 
which thus had acquired so great physiological im- 
portance. At first they were mistaken for very simple 
affairs, and their contents were quite neglected. But 
improved microscopes and better methods of research 
soon brought to light signs of intricate structure within 
these fine dots of living matter, and their behavior 
under close scientific scrutiny was found to be by no 
means so simple and artless as had been supposed. 
The cell-substance — the living matter — was then 
demonstrated to be similar in all cells, and was named 
protoplasm. A cell is a small lump of protoplasm. 

But what is that? The biologists are agreed that 
even this primitive protoplasm shows signs of structure, 
and already possesses some organization; but they are 
still far from agreement as to the nature of its ultimate 
structure. Some regard it as foam-like in its appear- 
ance, and others as matter finely reticulated, like the 
meshes of a net. Or it is supposed to be put together 
like a bundle of fibres. Another view is that it is 
composed of innumerable minute granules. The latest 
researches seem to indicate that it is composed of sim- 
pler and finer units which are ultra-microscopical, and 
which may bear very much the same relation to living 
matter that the molecules do to other matter. These 
ultimate units of protoplasm may assume varying 



30 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

arrangements or successive structural forms. Our 
microscopes certainly leave us still very far from the 
bottom of this secret. But observers are generally 
agreed that this apparently simple microscopic cell con- 
tains within itself different elements and distinctive 
parts, which have a definite work to perform in its life- 
history. One of the larger of these parts, which is 
easily distinguishable, is the nucleus. It is a well 
defined dot of matter within the cell, wliich will take 
a different chemical stain from the surrounding cell- 
contents or cytoplasm. This nuclear dot within a 
dot of living matter proves to be a new wonder; it 
seems to be the most wonderful thins; in the world. 
For the mystery of the whole subsequent development 
and organization of a plant or animal, all the differ- 
ences between the several species of plants and ani- 
mals, and, besides these, the factors of heredity, and 
the peculiarities of individuals, seem to lie hidden and 
packed among the infinitesimal potencies of this minute 
nucleus of an eofo'-cell. There it is under the micro- 
scope, — the whole mystery of being concentrated at a 
single point. The problem of the old schoolmen, how 
man}" angels can dance on the point of a needle? seems 
to be surpassed by the cool verity of this scientific 
calculation, — how can so man}- specific differences pro- 
ceed from microscopic matter finer than a needle's point ? 
But they do. 

Some of the principal parts of the nucleus will be 
mentioned as we now describe the revelation of the 
development of the organism from the egg-cell. This 
process has been much studied in the egg of a small 



\-< 



N_..r 















.;-**'!'- 






V v:i, 






:v-^- 



^■^"A... 
J 









Cm 



riGURE 1. 

Diagram of a cell. The cell-body is surrounded by a cell-membrane, 
(cm), and appears to be permeated by a mesh-work of delicate 
threads {cfitojdaaiaic reticulum, c.r). These tlireads are made up of 
minute granules, or microsomes, and together with the matrix enclosed 
in the mesh-work consist of living protoplasm. Other portions of the 
living protoplasm are differentiated into the various cell-organs, such 
as the nucleus, centrosomes and asters, and chromatopliores (Ch, found in 
the cells of green plants). 

The nucleus is surrounded by a nuclear membrane {N.M), and consists 
mainly of an irregular network of chromatin (c) suspended in a more 
fluid matrix by means of delicate threads of linin (/). The nucleus 
also commonly contains one or more rounded nucleoli (N), the function 
of which is unknown. A snuiU attraction-sphere (A.S), containing a 
minute ce/itrosome, is found in many cells, and its presence may be 
looked upou as well-nigh universal among animals. 

In the reticulum of tlie cytoplasm are suspended various non-living 
bodies, such as food i)articles ( f) stored up for the future iise of the 
cell, or secretions, excretions, etc. {S), and sometimes vacuoles of 
cell-sap {V). 



32 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

worm, the Ascaris. Our liymn-makers would hardly 
have taught us to sing, "What worthless worms are 
we," had they been familiar with the great service 
which, as Mr. Darwin has shown, the worms render in 
working up the soil for vegetation ; and when we know 
also the beautiful marvel of structure and growth 
which biology has discovered even in the Qgg of the 
humblest worm, it might be more scientifically true, as 
well as humble, for us to sing, "What wonderful worms 
are we ! " Certainly our rarest human handiwork is 
clumsiness in comparison with the intricate machinery 
and the exquisite fineness of the weaving of the threads 
of life in the division and growth of the living cell 
even of the worm. 

In order that this working of nature in the develop- 
ment of a cell may be rendered more visible, the micro- 
scopists first cut them into series of thin sections which 
are then stained with chemicals by means of which 
differences in their structure are rendered apparent. 
When we examine under a high power of the micro- 
scope a series of sections of a fertilized Qgg^ the veil 
begins to be lifted from the holy place of life's repro- 
duction. But the Power which dwells within this 
temple is unseen. First the nucleus of the ovum, the 
egg-cell, is matured and prepared for the beginning of 
a life-history by a succession of interesting changes 
which for the moment we will not seek to describe; 
then a germ from without, which also has been prepared 
for its work, enters it ; and behold ! a new process of 
life has been microscopically begun, which shall not 
fail or falter, which shall go from strength to strength 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 33 

and grace to grace until in the adult form its primal 
mystery of being shall have been revealed. One of 
the first signs to be marked in the development of the 
cell, is the appearance of two points called centrosomes, 
from which emanate star-like rays. These asters, as 
they are designated, at first lie near each other, but 
they will soon draw apart until they are seen lying at 
opposite poles of the cell. Meanwhile there is Avoven 
between them, no one can tell how, a number of fine 
threads, which expand in the middle of the cell, and 
which are gathered together at each pole, — the whole 
structure thus formed resembling a spindle. Near the 
middle part of this spindle are to be seen a number 
of lines or loops of matter, which may be clearly dis- 
tinguished because, on account of some peculiar chemi- 
cal constitution, they take a deeper stain than the rest 
of the egg-substance. And still the revelation of the 
mystery of life grows before our eyes ; for these loops, 
which are called chromosomes, will next split length- 
wise into equal halves, — no one really knows how : — 
and then these halves are gradually drawn apart, and — 
by what attraction we can only imperfectly understand 
— one half of them gather around one of the aster 
poles of the egg^ while the other half are drawn to 
the opposite polar star. By this means nature secures 
in the earliest embryonic organization an equal division 
of the matter within the cell which bears the hereditary 
properties. These equally divided loops are now known 
to be composed in equal proportions of matei-nal and 
paternal elements of the organism. Then, when these 
carefully halved chromosomes have been thus impar- 

3 




Figure 2. 



Diagrams illustrating the process of cell-division, or mitosis. 

A. Cell in the so-called "resting" stage; that is, not undergoing 
division. Above the nucleus is a centrosome. Tlie nucleus shows 
the irregular network of chroinatin and a rounded nucleolus. 

B. Cell preparing for division : the centrosome has divided into 
two daughter centrosomes, about which the amphiaster is beginning 
to form. The chromatin-network has resolved itself into a definite 
number of chromosomes. The nucleolus is beginning to degenerate. 

C. The asters have increased in size and the chromosomes are 
being drawn towards them. The nuclear membrane has partially 
disappeared. 

D. The asters have become much larger, a spindle is formed be- 
tween them, and the chromosomes are being drawn to the equator of 
the spindle. 

E. The amphiaster has reached its maximum in size and perfection. 
The chromosomes have become arranged symmetrically exactly in the 
equator of the spindle. In this and the following figures but half of 
the supposed number (eight) of chromosomes are shown. 

F. Each chromosome is splitting longitudinally into identically 
equivalent portions, the daughter chro7nosomes, wliicli in G are being 
drawn towards their respective asters. 

H. The daughter-clironiosomes are approaching the asters, the cen- 
trosomes of which have already divided in anticipation of the next cell 
division. On the equator of the cell appears a slight constriction of the 
cell-membrane, which gradiially deepens as the cell-division proceeds. 

/. The daughter-chromosomes having reached their respective asters, 
swell out into vesicles which fuse together to form the daughter-nuclei. 
The asters are degenerating. 

K. Division into two cells completed. The asters have practically 
disappeared, and the centrosomes will be lost to view a little later. 
The constriction seen in Fig. H has deepened until the cell-body has 
been cut in two at its equator. The daughter-nuclei liave increased in 
size by the absorption of food from the cytoplasm, and a nucleolus has 
appeared in each. In 7 and K the daughter-nucleus on the right is 
shown at a slightly more advanced stage than the one on the left. 
There are now two cells in tlie same condition as the single cell A in 
the resting stage. Each of those two may divide in a similar manner, 
and so the process of cell-multiplication be continued. 



36 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tially gathered around the opposite poles of the nucleus, 
nature proceeds to divide the cell in the middle between 
them, so that the result of the whole process is that two 
separate cells are formed, each containing its own half 
of the nuclear matter, which in the case of the egg- 
cell is likewise composed of equal shares of the heredi- 
tary matter from both sexes. And so in this simple, 
mathematically exact yet mysterious way, nature goes 
on dividing and multipl}T.ng cells unto the perfection 
of the organic form. This process of cell-division is 
the method of all subsequent growth. 

We will pass over the details of the further process 
of embryological development, — they are exactly de- 
scribed in the text-books of physiology ; but in general 
this process of cell-division and cell-multiplication goes 
on in embryonic development after this manner: first 
a spherical layer of cells will be formed, surrounding 
a cavity (hlastida) ; then these cells will be arranged 
in two layers, hollowed in, like a rubber ball pressed 
in from one side, forming a double-layered cup ; then 
there follow still further groupings and differentiations 
of cells and layers of cells, until the adult form is 
fasliioned. In this process, two quite distinct kinds of 
cells early appear; one of them are the germ cells, 
which shall serve the purpose of transmitting life with 
its hereditary properties; the other are the somatic, or 
body-cells, from which the tissues and frame and organs 
of the individual are built up. 

Regarding this process of fertilization and develop- 
ment as one whole, we find at the beginning a simplest 
cell, like the little Qgg of the worm Ascaris ; the method 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 37 

of growth is seen to be through successive divisions and 
multiplications of the cells ; and at the end of it all, 
according to the nature of the ultra-microscopic matter 
of the egg-cell at the beginning, and as the full final 
revelation of its life, we find the specific adult creature, 
the worm, the fish, or bird, or mammal, yes, likewise, — 
for our life too belongs to nature and is cherished at her 
heart, — the human child. Such in brief is the evolu- 
tion of life from the cell. Shall we hesitate to call such 
evolution revelation ? It is revelation of something un- 
seen. From the invisible comes forth the visible. The 
unknown makes itself known. We see the thing which 
is coming forth from the things which do not appear. 
The original mystery of the dispensation of matter and 
force takes living form and shape, and unfolds itself 
before our eyes. Our science may follow it part way, 
and describe it ; it knows not the cause of it. Watch- 
ing it, studying it, thinking over it, we ask. What is it 
which is here coming to revelation? And how is it 
disclosed ? What is the method of this natural revela- 
tion through life ? 

If we look up from this single instance which I have 
been describing; if we survey the whole evolution, and 
consider it in the large, we are confronted with this 
same question, What is nature's method of revelation? 
Are there any principles of revelation which we may 
discover in the course of evolution ? Are such prin- 
ciples of revelation to be found and followed through- 
out nature ? Do they hold good in every realm of the 
creation? We have next, therefore, to observe certain 
characteristics of nature as a revelation. We shall 
search for the principles in the facts. 



38 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

We find first that the principle of revelation in nature 
is one of self -revelation, — of revelation of itself from 
within. Evolution throughout is nature's self- revela- 
tion. The Life comes to the light in the development 
of the egg-cell. This disclosure may be of some power 
beneath or above nature ; but the revelation of it, what- 
ever its Name may be, comes from within nature, and 
through its life. It is light shining from within, and 
growing as the development proceeds. The mystery of 
the ages which envelops the egg-cell, is not suddenly 
lifted as a veil might be by some hand from without. 
No search-light from afar is flashed down into life's 
primal secret as it lies hidden darkly in nature's heart. 
We must wait, and watch for it to make known its own 
meaning. Neither is revelation, as it comes to us down 
the great world-process of evolution, like a sudden flash 
of reflected light, in which nature's original meaning 
and intent may be discerned; nature rather becomes 
self-luminous. Gradually, as the ages proceed, the 
mystery of the dispensation of life becomes manifest. 

Moreover, this character of self-revelation pertains to 
evolution everywhere. It is a method running through 
all the orders of the world. The text of nature's sacred 
scripture grows from age to age ; but no commentary is 
added, no note of explanation is ever appended. We 
must find out nature's meaning from her own text, and 
from the text only. The book of life is issued in suc- 
cessive chapters, and there is no break of meaning be- 
tween them ; but on every page it is to be read in its 
own language without help of translation; it is to be 
understood by comparison of its successive chapters, and 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 39 

interpreted in the completion of its one volume. If it 
has rational unity, that will be found in its whole order. 
If it has the characteristic of a process of thought, that 
will be discovered in the logic of its whole movement. 
If it has direction from the beginning and throughout 
its course toward some final end, that too will be dis- 
closed in the succession of its forms. If in short, 
nature as one whole is characterized by intelligence and 
is informed with thought, its glory of reason will be re- 
vealed as the disclosure of its secret from of old, and as 
its own prophecy of its destiny. There is no other way 
of natural revelation than this way of self-revelation. 

Evolution is a progressive revelation. 

The method of revelation in evolution is marked by 
these two related characters, — it is, as has just been 
noted, an opening forth from within of the powers and 
promise of the creation ; and it is further a progressive 
disclosure of them. Evolution, as one continuous course 
of nature, contains always both prophecies and fulfil- 
ments. Each successive chapter brings out further the 
meaning of preceding chapters, and points also to some- 
thing to be made known in coming chapters. Evolu- 
tion is a novel with a plot. It is a story which grows 
more interesting as we read on. It is a romance of life 
with love hinted at the beginning, and growing clearer 
through its varying fortunes and many perplexities, and 
becoming sure of itself as the story goes on. 

This progressive character of natural revelation 
appears in a striking manner when we consider one of 
the noted discoveries of modern embryology. It has 



40 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

been observed that the growth of the individual in the 
egg repeats, or in some measure recapitulates, the suc- 
cessive stages of the development of the race. The in- 
dividual sums up the history of his ancestors. This 
law of recapitulation cannot indeed be too closely fol- 
lowed in embryological growth, and it has sometimes 
been exaggerated and travestied in popular conceptions 
of it ; as, for instance, when it is represented that " the 
human embryo is in one stage like a little fish, later like 
a little reptile, and so on." Mr. Milnes Marshall has 
expressed the truth in " a wide and metaphorical sense," 
when he said that " Every animal in its own develop- 
ment repeats its history, climbs up its own genealogical 
tree." ^ It is true that in a general, though usually a 
much abbreviated way, the later animals repeat in their 
embryonic growth stages which resemble earlier forms 
of life. Gill-slits, for instance, like those of a fish are to 
be seen in a chick a few hours old within the Qgg. The 
whole process of previous life is not repeated, and earlier 
forms are often overlaid by more recent adaptations ; 
but, speaking broadly, the life-history of the previous 
ages is recapitulated in the embryonic growth of the 
later forms, and in the growth of the human child. 

Now this habit of nature of summing up, as it were, 
lower chapters in the history of life at the beginning of 
new ones, is found invaluable to naturalists as an aid to 
their understanding of the course of evolution, and as a 
help to the right classification of different animal forms. 
Following nature's own summary, they are enabled to 
arrange better her forms in their true order, and they 

1 Thomson, Science of Life ^ p. 135. 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 41 

find that these constitute a progressive series. For this 
is our point in referring to this habit of recapitulation 
in nature ; — we have been helped to see by it that the 
evolution of life has been throughout a progressive 
revelation. As the process draws towards its com- 
pletion, in the embryonic growth of the higher animals 
we can read the previous history backwards, and under- 
stand more truly its progress. Life in its last forms 
becomes a fulfilled prophecy, by means of which we 
may interpret words spoken of old by nature in the first 
inspirations of her up-reaching life. When the whole 
history is summed up, and put before us in its most 
complete form, we can perceive that it has been through- 
out an intelligible record, and that all its successive 
chapters and parts have had their place and time. 

Evolution is increasing revelation to a growing 
organ of perception. 

On the one side there is an increasing manifestation 
of nature, and on the other side there is growing 
capacity to receive the revelation. The fact that it is 
so, will appear when we consider how the natural world 
has gradually been disclosed to the e3^e which was 
forming to see it. Indeed one of the most interesting, 
but as yet unwritten chapters of popular science might 
be entitled, A Chapter on Eyes, and How they came 
to see. Only in scattered notices here and there in our 
scientific literature has this natural romance of the 
evolution of the eye been written, and it has not yet 
been made popular science. It is indeed a wonderful 
history — this strange story of growth from its earliest 



42 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

rudiments of the clear-seeing eye. The zoologists from 
their comparative observations of all kinds of eyes 
have gathered much material for this scientific serial. 
Through its chief stages, and in many interesting 
particulars, the development of the most highly or- 
ganized eye can now be followed; the genealogy, so to 
speak, of the eye may be traced. We will not attempt 
to describe it here with technical definition ; but we will 
follow it sufiiciently to show the truth of this character- 
istic of natural revelation now before us ; viz., the 
revelation of nature increases as the capacity of per- 
ception for it grows. 

All living matter is now known to have some 
sensitiveness to light. Some response to light has 
been shown to characterize even the primitive proto- 
plasm of an amoeba. And what is still more curious, 
that little dot of a being, without any organization to 
speak of, has been found to notice different kinds of 
light, for it will respond differently to different colors.^ 
It will answer with the quickest responsive movement 
the stimulus of the red ray ; it will answer somewhat 
less responsively the green and yellow rays. Its motions 
\vill be stopped or reversed by violet rays. It may be 
perhaps a question whether these differences in its 
response are not occasioned by the different degrees of 
intensity of the light rather than by the changing 
colors ; but the experiments indicate that living matter 
in its primitive form has some sensitiveness even to 
color. As an amoeba^ however, has no special organ for 
any function of its little life, so it has no particular 

1 See Am. Jour. ofPhys. Aug. 1899, pp. 9-18. 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 43 

point of response to the light. It does not need it. 
But from this general primal sensitiveness of living 
matter to light, and under the stimulus of the light, the 
eye shall in time take form, and perfect vision come. 
In a minute microscopic organism (Euglena) — to 
which reference has already been made as half plant 
and half animal — - there may be noticed at one end a 
small red speck, which is called an eye-spot. The name 
may seem almost fanciful, yet that spot is known to be 
sensitive to light. Some way farther along the scale of 
animal ascent, in many of the lowest mollusks veritable 
eye-spots are found. On their exposed epithelial sur- 
face certain pigment spots appear ; the epithelial cells 
at these points become slightly elongated into a rod-like 
form, and we witness nature's first attempt to make a 
seeing eye. But in this simplest form there is as yet 
no vision — only an eye-spot, possessing special sensi- 
tiveness to light. A little more is gained for the coming 
faculty of vision when these pigmented spots of the 
outer membrane or skin become depressed, and form 
saucer-like pits in which the sunbeams are gathered up. 
The primitive eye is only a saucer — a sensitive saucer 
— for gathering sunbeams. Then this depression is 
deepened, and becomes like a cup, as in the eye of a 
limpet; and the nervous tissue beneath it begins to 
separate into distinguishable layers. Still thus far we 
have only a spot better fitted to perceive light, but not 
capable of distinguishing objects. The next step con- 
sists in closing up the cup which has been made, leaving 
just a pin-hole open for a beam of light to pass in; and 
then, having gone so far, nature seems easily to go a 



44 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

little farther, and covers the small opening with a 
transparent membrane. It is not quite closed in the 
Nautilus^ it is closed and covered in the snail. Thus 
the common snail was a distinct acquisition to natural 
society with its better eye. This cup-like eye, so closed, 
is then filled with a transparent refractive substance, 
which may be regarded as the beginning of the vitreous 
humor. Now at length the image of an object becomes 
possible on the retina, which nature at the same time 
has been finishing at the bottom of the cup. Nature 
next manages to let a bit of cuticle grow into this cup- 
like eye, and to take form as a crystalline lens for 
better seeing. In the common squid we find the eye 
at this further stage of its formation ; and indeed the 
growth of the eye in the embryo of the squid passes 
through, or recapitulates, the successive stages which 
have just been described. Nature has thus reached the 
best possible invertebrate eye. In its earlier forms sight 
may be a "pin-hole vision"; but it takes in some- 
thing of the great outlying world, — enough at least for 
the uses of the life for which a nautilus may need to see. 
We need not follow with a too complicated technical 
description the further stages and diversifications in the 
later interesting development of the vertebrate eye. Its 
history branched off, and followed an improved method 
of its own. It has gradually grown to be what it is in 
our organ of sight. Its exceeding excellence is a slowly 
acquired perfection of vision. When at last it is gained, 
behold the full revelation which is opened to it ! The 
earth and the sky at last are mirrored in the finished 
eye. 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 45 

Reflect that throughout this evolution of the eye 
nature has been an increasing revelation to its growing 
perceptive power. There has been revelation of nature 
as fast as there was formed an eye to see nature. Only 
as much at any time can be disclosed of the great out- 
lying world, as there exists at that stage of evolution an 
eye to perceive. To the rudimentary eye-cup only a 
dim sensation of some outlying reality can be given. 
Through the primitive eye-slit a vague perception of 
light beyond may be brought in ; but the objects which 
lie in the world without do not yet appear. The worm, 
or the primitive moUusk must be a veritable agnostic, 
perceiving light, but seeing nothing in it. In the eye 
better fitted with a simple lens images of objects, 
although still vague and shadowy, may be depicted. 
There are some peculiarities of insect eyes which have 
led naturalists to suppose that possibly they may have 
some perceptions adapted to their needs, which we do 
not need, and do not have with our larger, better eyes. 
Through the eyes of the most developed animals, and to 
such degrees of sentience as they may possess, nature 
reveals not only distinct images of things, but also objects 
to be desired or avoided, the means of preserving life, 
ways of escape from danger, and the places best fitted 
for their existence. Nature reveals to them food, and 
whatever is needed for animal life in harmony with 
her provisions. Thus ever with increasing sentiency 
the revelation grows. At last through the eye of man, 
to the intelligence behind it, not only food and raiment, 
and all things needful for the maintenance of life are dis- 
closed ; but the veil is lifted from a realm of order and 



46 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

of beauty which had long been waiting to be revealed. 
Nature has formed at last the finished eye of intelligence 
to behold her perfect loveliness. In a fair landscape, or 
from a mountain-top, man sees a world which seems not 
to be opened to the eye of his dog or to the horse that 
will turn from the grandest prospect to the grass by the 
side of the path ; man perceives a largeness of sunny 
space, a loveliness of color, a beauty of the fields and a 
splendor in the skies, which had been there waiting long 
for eye to see it. Nature's final revelation is to the open 
eye of intelligence ; the poet looks on nature and feels 

" A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man, 
A motion and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
A lover of the meadows and the woods, 
And mountains ; and of all that we behold 
From this green earth ; of aU the mighty world 
Of eye and ear." 

Even at the risk of repetition we should fix clearly in 
mind, as of much importance, the double method of 
natural revelation which has thus been described, for 
in our subsequent inquiries we shall have frequent 
need to recur to it. Generalizing and stating it as a law 
of natural revelation, we have this principle : there is 
first progress in the development of the subject-matter 
which is to be known ; and, secondly, there is progress 
in the faculty by which the matter to be disclosed may 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 47 

be known; and, thirdly, there is finer correspondence 
between these two. Evolution is at last revelation of 
formed nature to mind grown capable of apprehending 
it. We shall consider later on how much further this 
principle of natural revelation may carry us ; — whether 
there may not be possible some further and fairer dis- 
closure of nature to intelligence still better fitted than 
ours just now to receive it ; whether things eye hath not 
seen nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived, may not 
be preparing for some full, final manifestation of them to 
the children of the light and of the day — the creation's 
supreme and resplendent manifestation at last to the 
children of God. 

It would lead somewhat beyond our present limits to 
carry this line of thought to its further issues in the 
recognition of the same principles of revelation through- 
out human history. A suggestion only of this further 
continuation of the same method of natural revelation 
in man's life will be sufficient for our immediate 
purpose. 

In human history likewise revelation has been from 
within through the life ; it has been gradual and pro- 
gressive ; and it continues still to be increasing mani- 
festation of the Spirit of the Christ to the growing 
Christian sense of the world. The Bible, as our trained 
students of it are now teaching us, is a record of a 
divine revelation through a selected line of life. The 
supreme revelation of the Father has not been communi- 
cated to us from the sky above ; it is not as the voice of 
the angel standing in the sun ; ^ the Life was the light 

^ Kev. xix. 17. 



48 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

of the world. The words of the Master seem to be 
self-luminous ; and the Father is known through the 
Christ living among men. Nor has his disclosure 
of the truth ceased in the witness to him of the 
first disciples. His authority has been and is a liv- 
ing and hence a growing authority, deepening with 
the thoughts of men's hearts, and expanding with the 
life of the world. There were many things which 
the Chidst could not say to his immediate disciples, be- 
cause thc}^ could not receive them. Their capacity to 
perceive had not yet expanded to the full manifestation 
of the Spirit. They should know hereafter. Their 
spiritual eyes were not then perfectly grown to see all 
that the Master might reveal. As Christian history 
jjrogresses and religious experience broadens, not only 
on the one hand is the truth more largely brought to 
light, but also Christian minds and hearts may be 
selected and formed, and still more finely trained to 
perceive it, and to become bright in it. In accordance 
with the first principles of natural revelation, which we 
have been studying, spiritual revelation, the manifes- 
tation of supernal truth to the spirit that is in man, has 
never ceased, and it shall continue to increase until the 
full day shall come. The Church, as the centuries 
pafes, may gain a more seeing eye, a truer mind and a 
happier heart, for the ever-enlarging manifestation of 
redeeming Love ; until at last there may be found on 
earth the pure heart for the vision of God. 

To the individual, also, the same natural principles 
of revelation may apply ; nature, history, the Bible, the 
present dispensation, may become to us increasing re- 



EVOLUTION AS REVELATION 49 

velation, as in the personal life, and its growth in grace, 
we acquire clearer spiritual eyes to see the whole world 
lying in the full light of love. It will be at last a 
sunny world for the sunny eye to see. For there is 
profound truth alike of evolution and of its revelation 
in Goethe's saying that the eye must itself be sunny that 
would see the sun. 

In this chapter we have been studying the method of 
natural revelation irrespective of the contents of revela- 
tion. It is necessary to inquire first as to the method 
of it before we can know the truths which it may con- 
tain. It will prove an immense gain for our faiths if 
we may first understand somewhat how nature may 
teach us, or in what ways we may expect to hear what- 
ever the universe may have to say to us. In further 
chapters we shall follow on to know some of these 
words which in this manner of speech nature may have 
to declare ; we shall thus in a way which is scientifically 
true inquire how much these words of natural revelation 
may signify for our most human faiths and our dearest 
hope. 



4 



CHAPTER III 

THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 

Having given in tlie last chapter some account of 
how nature speaks to us, or of the method of revelation 
through evolution, we pass next to a study of some of 
the chief words which nature may have to declare, as 
we ourselves have become intelligences sufficiently 
evolved to hear whatever nature is waiting to make 
known to us. 

The first question — a vital one for the subsequent 
interpretation of nature — relates to the guidance of 
evolution : Does nature show direction towards any def- 
inite end? Has the created world rightly been com- 
pared to a ship which has been abandoned as a derelict 
upon the high seas, in itself evidently fitted up and 
ordered for some good voyage, yet left without helms- 
man to drift as an aimless world over the deeps of infin- 
ite space : or has the world received from the beginning 
definite direction toward some goal, and has it kept 
that direction throughout its age-long course, — is it 
keeping itself true to it now? As Mr. Ward tersely 
puts it, Is evolution *' without guidance or with guid- 
ance " ? 

Observe, as a preliminary consideration, that any 

evidence which the course of nature may disclose of 

50 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 51 

direction towards some end, is not to be set aside by 
any ignorance of ours concerning the nature of the end 
towards which all things may be moving. It would not 
follow that a ship may not be sailing on a predetermined 
course, because it may be sailing under sealed orders, 
and no one on board may know well its ultimate desti- 
nation. Even if nature be under orders whose seal no 
man may break, nevertheless it may be moving on 
towards something which is yet to be revealed. The 
first question for us to determine is one of fact, whether 
it is moving along any definite, progressive course. 

Neither would it necessarily follow that the course of 
visible nature may not be as a personally conducted 
tour, although the director of it, and organizer of it all, 
may be represented at different times only by his agents, 
and may never appear personally while the journey is 
being made. The main question relates primarily to 
the fact of direction in nature ; then we may inquire 
next what may be learned of its character. If there is 
any evidence of guidance in evolution, we must find it 
in the evolution itself. Matter we know, and force we 
know : Does our science know anything of direction ? 
of direction towards an end? Are there any signs 
that there is a directive touch guiding nature's course, 
although no directing hand may be visible to us ? Or 
how shall such direction as we observe in nature be 
explained? Instead of confessing, "I believe in God 
the Father Almighty," it is easy to say, " I believe in 
Matter in Motion " ; but will that short creed prove long 
enough to stretch around the facts which nature pre- 
sents, as we are shown the ends of evolution which 



52 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

already nature has actually gained, and the process 
thi'ough which they have been reached? 

Our human experience may be large enough, our 
positive knowledge may measure distance long enough 
along the way in which evolution has proceeded, to en- 
able us to determine that as matter of fact there has 
been and is movement along some line ; and to warrant 
us also in some inferences as to the character of this 
direction, whether its tendency on the whole is towards 
higher vital values and happier issues. Possessing 
for my habitation a bit of a river's shore, I may be 
able from my little space along its bank to perceive 
that there is a sti'eam which flows one way, and not 
merely a succession of aimless, wind-swept waves, 
breaking upon the beach. I may know even from 
my brief life here that there is in nature's course 
a tendency, sure and strong, all in one direction; al- 
though I may know little or nothing of the fountains 
and far off springs of all this mighty motion, and can 
only dream of the outlet and some large hereafter, 
towards which all things seem hastening on. And if I 
may find from present observation reason to believe that 
nature does not resemble a stagnant pool, stirred only by 
the passing breezes ; if I may perceive that human history 
is not as a heap of accidental sands swept together by 
ever-shifting winds, only to be scattered again ; — this 
much of knowledofe and of confidence will form the first 
essential article at least of a grand natural faith. For 
us to believe in matter without any idea in it, is mate- 
rialism ; to believe in matter with some idea in it is 
spiritualism. We can be satisfied to remain agnostics, 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 53 

only when we shall have searched through the material 
realm for the ideas of it, and have exhausted all the 
meanings which the facts of the universe and its evolu- 
tion may possibly open up to us. 

We shall have, therefore, to survey first the facts of 
evolution which indicate some direction ; and then we 
may consider their higher interpretation. In this sur- 
vey even slight signs, or apparently incidental facts of 
nature are not to be passed by ; for, to apply to our pur- 
pose the line with which Dante began his progress 
through the spheres, if we find ourselves as "in a 
gloomy wood," " midway of this our mortal life," then 
certainly the trail which may lead out to some sunny 
opening, may best be followed by the eye from whose 
notice does not escape the least trace of footprint, or the 
bending of a blade of grass, or the occasional sunbeams 
through the thick leaves. 

We proceed accordingly to take up next in some 
detail the facts which give indication of the direction 
which has actually been pursued through evolution. 
We shall go forward surely, if we can succeed in fol- 
lowing slowly nature's way on and out. 

There has been direction of motion in the inorganic 
world. 

Evolution in the physical realm has started from 
some definite beginning, followed a determinate course, 
and reached at least a way-station of its progress in 
the world around us. The route may not always have 
been straightforward; at points it may seem to curve 
back upon itself; but there has been a continuous 



54 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

track all the way, and in pursuing it the energy of the 
universe has reached its present end in the world as it 
now exists for us. It is not scientifically conceived, if 
we should say, from millions of possibilities the physi- 
cal universe has happened to take its existing form. 
The only conception which a thorough-going evolution- 
ist should admit, is that from given primitive conditions 
the existing universe has resulted in a regular and 
causal sequence of events. We do not overlook in this 
connection an ingenious argument for the play of chance 
in the formation of the world, which in the supposed 
interests of freedom an eminent mathematician has de- 
vised. His supposition in favor of chance and against 
a universal mechanical necessity has been thus put 
forth : Of a hundred persons who start out to walk 
in many different directions, it is supposed that on a 
theory of mathematical chances it might come about 
that ten might walk in the same direction, and that 
any two of the ten, who also happen to walk at the 
same pace, might in time be found walking together. 
These companies of fellow-travellers, going two by two, 
would thus have been brought together by mere chance. 
So the atoms, it is imagined, starting out and travelling 
in their several ways, may have accidentally fallen into 
separate groups. So in molecular groups order may 
have arisen from a chance natural selection. The sup- 
position is good as far as it goes. But it overlooks the 
stragglers. What has become of the ninety of the 
original hundred travellers who did not happen to fall 
into the same way or the same pace? The stragglers 
should also be in evidence somewhere along the road. 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 56 

The unselected and unaccompanied wayfarers would 
also turn up as they pass irregularly along. But in our 
universe of order no such wayfarers appear anywhere. 
There are no straggling atoms; there are no solitary 
elements, so far as we know. It is everywhere order 
and uniformity, so far as appears. There is no limbo 
in nature for lost atoms. Tliere is no apparent waste 
of energy in aborted possibilities of worlds. 

The origin of things indeed lies beyond knowledge ; 
that is something for us to think about, not to see. But 
the known fact is this : where things first come within 
our sight, they have already received definite form 
and determinate direction. They come into the field of 
knowledge as a procession of forms, keeping time and 
marching to their own music, like an ordered host. 

The physicists suppose that the original condition of 
things was something very different from matter as we 
now have to deal with it. They suppose atomic matter 
to have been derived from some primal ether, which has 
its peculiar properties, very hard for us to comprehend ; 
they describe it as a perfect fluid, the perfection of 
which seems to consist in its not possessing the ordinary 
characteristics which we mean by the word fluid. But 
whatever this first estate and original innocence of 
ethereal matter was, certainly at the first point where 
onr science may lay hold of it, it has already acquired 
very definite characters and fixed habits; it has been 
put under bonds to its own constitution, and in all its 
subsequent motions it must follow the laws of its struc- 
ture. In a word, our knowledge of the universe begins 
with energy which has already acquired definite direc- 



56 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tion. It is not energy which is free to take form in 
indefinite chance creations ; it is energy already har- 
nessed to an idea, and sent towards the very end which 
has actually been attained in the existing physical uni- 
verse. Moreover, so determinate is the energy of the 
world that we may follow scientifically the evolution 
of the physical universe step by step with much plausi- 
bility. The course of it runs forwards, concrete and 
definite, as a railway track ; and we can name several 
of its way-stations. The first is known as the atom. 
According to our best scientific imagination an atom is 
a vortex-ring, — a whirl of ether. The atoms are so 
many original whirls. Atomic matter is nature's first 
dance. When two atoms dance together, when two 
ethereal whirls are made one, then the molecule is 
formed. It may be an unstable combination. Partners 
are changed, and doubtless it took some ages for them 
to settle down into stable and harmonious relations. 
But in time, and under cooling temperature, one after 
another of the seventy or more elements of the physical 
order were formed. Then masses of elemental matter, 
so constituted, take shape and position; nebulae, mete- 
orites, stars appear; the aucient order of the heavens 
was born. Has not Professor Lockyer traced out for 
our wondering gaze the evolution of the stars ? And 
on this earth the physical process continued as it 
was determined ; bodies composed of different elements 
appeared in permanent forms ; ciystallization occurred, 
the diamond is pressed into being. The geologists have 
discovered also a corresponding order of evolution in the 
development of the successive geological faunae. It is 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 57 

described by Professor Le Conte as a general movement 
upwards and onwards, with diversity of direction and 
rate of motion in different localities, and with re-adjust- 
ments and re-distributions of faunae at critical epochs.^ 
It is a long distance between the mathematically imag- 
ined perfect fluid at the start, and the existent earth, 
with its diversified physical constitution, its mountains, 
and rivers, and fields, and oceans, and its precious 
stones, — a world fitted for life and ministered unto by 
all the heavens ; — but this is the end which has been 
reached ; it is a physical and climatic end which renders 
life possible on the surface of a world ; and to this end 
the evolution has been sent from the beginning. The 
direction throughout towards this goal is not itself an 
accidental by-play of the evolution; rather it is the 
character of the evolution as one whole. And char- 
acter is always something ideal. The course of the 
evolution apparently has the character of an idea : it is 
like a process of thought ; it has moved on from a begin- 
ning to an end, as a process of thought moves on. The 
constellations are crystallizations of God's thought. 
But we are asserting at this point only the ideal appear- 
ance of the process as a whole of inorganic evolution. 

A further known characteristic of physical evolution 
is next to be noticed; viz., the passing its work on to 
the higher vital order. When the physical evolution 
of the world had gone apparently as far as it could in 
its own way, it did not stop and turn back upon itself ; 
it handed its energy over to another, a promising order 

1 Popular Science Monthly, March, 1900. 



58 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

of evolution beyond itself. Or rather we should say, 
the original energy which had been manifesting itself 
in the evolution of the physical world, when that was 
finished, and nothing much better was to be gained 
on that field, did not stop, and turn back ; it went on in 
a new conveyance, in a more excellent way, towards 
the promise of organic evolution. 

A traveller hastening on his way may have to make 
several changes in his carriage before he reaches his des- 
tination. He may take now a railway, or a steamship, or 
other means of conveyance, transferring himself from one 
to another, in order to reach his journey's end. Simi- 
larly, evolution, or the energy of evolution, has seemed 
like a traveller who changes at times his carriage, but 
keeps pressing always towards his goal. Energy has been 
handed over, energy has been passed up from one order 
to another. It has passed from the ethereal mode of it 
to the atomic : it has been transferred from the molec- 
ular to the vital conveyance of it. And moreover it 
is profoundly significant, that just when the energy of 
evolution seems to have gone as far as it can in one way, 
and must stop, and turn back, or make a new depart- 
ure, then it takes a fresh start in another order. The 
atom was a new departure, and by means of the atoms 
the creation was carried on out of the ether up to the 
fixed stars. Life on the earth was a new start. The 
first bit of protoplasm, however it originated, marked 
the end of definite movement on one plane of nature, 
and the continuation of it in a new direction, on 
another line and towards something not attainable on 
the lower plane, but to be reached in time, far beyond 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 59 

all that had been before it. Protoplasm — the coming 
of the protoplasmic order — is the beginning of a new 
reign, and the promise and potency of a glory yet to be 
revealed. When the first living cell appeared in some 
far off geologic time, it was nature's prophecy of the 
new earth ; — behold ! the wilderness shall blossom as 
the rose, and the stream of the molecules shall become 
as the river of the water of life. 

We turn now to this further and still more significant 
indication of guidance in nature, — the Fact of Direc- 
tion in the Organic World. 

We will search first for the evidence of it within the 
living cell. For if there appears to be direction in the 
movements of the cell, we may look for providence of a 
similar kind in the affairs of the world. Or, conversely, 
it might be put : If we have reason to believe that there 
is any providence in the great outlying world, we may 
look for direction also within the least cell. The in- 
ternal ordering of the cell may present providence in 
miniature. We may scientifically apply to the divine 
providence the test which Jesus applied to the conduct 
of his disciples, and say that if it is faithful in that 
which is least it will be faithful also in that which is 
greatest. Nor can we separate in our reasonings the 
problem of providence in the least and in the greatest ; 
through the microscope and the telescope, over the 
broad ranges of history, and in the beating of our hearts, 
it is one and the same problem of the rational direction 
and moral guidance of life. Hence if we would inter- 
pret the cell aright, we must not only examine it under 



60 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

the microscope; Tve must focus also upon its mystery 
all our light of life ; and, conversely, the little living 
cell may have its contribution, not to be despised, to 
make to our spiritual philosophy of life. 

We have already given a general description of the 
structure of the cell. Our present point is that living 
matter in its lowest power, far back as Y»'e may know it, 
has already received definite structure. In its least 
dimensions it is defined, determinate, organized matter. 
A mere enumeration of the different parts and elements 
which appear in a cell during its life-history is sufficient 
to impress this fact upon ns ; we will read them off, as 
they are technically named, simply by the enumeration 
to show what an assembly of definite parts, fitted to 
each other, lie packed in the cell. They are the cell- 
wall, the cytoplasm, or cell-matter; the nucleus, the 
nuclear membrane, the nucleolus, the attraction 
spheres, the centrosomes, and even smaller dots, the 
centrioles, within these, the chromatin matter, the 
chromosomes, the polar bodies, the asters, the. spindle 
fibres, the linin threads, the protoplasmic granules, the 
cell-plate, and some other things not quite distinguish- 
able enough as yet to be named.^ You perceive what a 
complicated factory world this microscopic sphere is, and 
from it, in response to calls from the outer world, issue 
all the variegated and rich patterns of life's ceaseless 
w^eaving. 

Now the significant fact to which in this connection 
attention should be directed is this: what this egg-cell 
produces has already been determined by its organiza- 

1 See Figure 1, p. 31 ; and 2, p. 34. 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 61 

tion. It is so put together, its several parts so related, 
and their mutual working so adjusted, that it produces 
regularly certain definite results. It is so much matter 
well organized for work. Because it is made as it is, it 
does what it does. Direction has already been given to 
it. Our first knowledge of life is knowledge of matter 
which has been brought under some control for certain 
ends. 

On the very threshold then of the organic realm the 
question meets us, How is this fact of organization to 
be understood ? From whence did it come ? What 
does it mean? To what has it been sent? In other 
words, at the first point in the way of life where science 
may enter it, we observe this sign of direction, — organ- 
ization for a result ; how was that sign set up there, and 
what does it signify? This little cell-world does not 
come out of the unknown as a fortuitous heap of atoms ; 
it is not a chaos without form and void. It is a thought- 
ful growth. Some Spirit has brooded over the living 
cell ; some Power has directed it along its way of life. 
Herein lies the wonder, the first natural miracle, shall 
we call it? of matter definitely formed and organized 
for the exercise of specific functions in the development 
of life. Certain energies, whatever they may be, have 
been marshalled within this limited field, and led in dis- 
tinct and intelligible formation for the coming conflict 
of life, as much so as any regiments drawn up in array 
for the battle. These vital atoms are no mob force. 
They have been drilled, and given their place, and they 
keep true time and obey tlieir orders. The individual 
units may be changed, some may fall away; but the 



62 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

lines of the formation are kept, and shall not be lost in 
the whole subsequent struggle of life. In short, it is a 
primal fact, which waits to be interpreted, that matter 
has acquired definite vital direction in the egg-cell. 

We have thus far been dealing with nature's vital 
elements and observing the signs which they show 
that they are sent to some purpose, as they begin life's 
mission upon the earth. We proceed further to inquire 
what nature next does with them, and how she contrives 
to make the most of tiiem. The lowest animals, the 
least of all nature's children of promise, are organisms 
which consist of but single cells — the so-called uni- 
cellular organisms. Sir Fov/ell Buxton once attributed 
his success in life to his habit of being a whole man to 
one thing at a time. The same may be said of the 
primitive unicellular organisms, for they owe their suc- 
cess in life to a similar principle. An amoeha can be 
nothing else than a whole cell to one thing at a time. 
Without mouth, or stomach, or any separate organs, it 
manages to feed simply by throwing itself around and 
engulfing the particle whose nutriment it absorbs. But 
nature does not remain long in that primitive undiffer- 
entiated condition. It proceeds soon to combine and 
to diversify its original units. A principle of division of 
labor appears very early, and as \\q follow up this new 
way of the distinction and combination of parts for the 
production of better vital results, we shall mark in- 
creasing evidences of some direction in nature. Very 
soon in the history of life an idea of growth, the fine 
constructive idea of growth through the division of 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 63 

labor, seems to have been introduced. The beginnings 
of this new tendency may be traced even in the one- 
celled organisms; for in the Infusoria — minute animal- 
cules which will swarm in an infusion of hay — there 
begin to be distinguishable something like a mouth, and 
food vacuoles, or temporary holes at least for digestion, 
and some other rudiments of different parts. One of 
the first noticeable steps in this direction of the division 
of labor is to be seen in aggregations of cells in one 
living mass. Near the beginnings of the vegetable world 
there is to be found a small transparent ball of jelly, in 
which several spherical particles lie embedded, which 
upon investigation prove to be living substances con- 
veniently rolled up together in the same globule, but 
still separated from one another. We see here in its 
primitive form a collective life of cells. It seems to be 
nature's first attempt at socialism — a mere collection of 
individuals loosely bound together, hardly as yet a 
working colony of cells. But that soon comes upon 
life's stage. For in some other quite primitive forms 
individual cells have not only been collected together, 
but they have thrown out threads of protoplasm by means 
of which they become loosely interwoven ; as in a species 
which for this reason has received the scientific name of 
Mikrogromia socialis — the social Mikrogromia.^ Nature 
makes another early effort in the direction of social 
existence in certain forms in which separate cells seem 
to have run together and become one large protoplasmic 
mass, but with several distinct nuclei, as in the fungus 
growth called Myxomycetes ; and this primitive kind of 

1 Hertwig, Die Zelle and die Gewebe, B. ii, s. 11. 



64 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

associated life, is frequently met with near the begin- 
nings of the vegetal and animal world.^ 

Thus far, however, up the scale the separate cells are 
only associated together, but have as yet attained no dis- 
tinctive functions, and no very definite and permanent 
division of labor between them has been as yet arranged. 
But nature, having gone thus far, proceeds straight on 
in the same direction ; above the first class of unicellular 
organisms, and just beyond these primitive approaches 
towards the communal life among them, which we 
have observed, there has come into existence a second 
distinct class of animal organisms, composed of several 
cells, which begin to assume mutual and more and more 
definite organic relations to one another. Tliis class in 
distinction from the first class, the protozoa, is called 
the metazoa; several zooids, or animal units, are united 
in a mutual life. But the vital association of cells in 
one organism is a very primitive connection — a quite 
informal gathering — when we first catch sight of it in 
nature. It may consist at first simply of a binding to- 
gether of a series of independent cells upon a common 
stock, like blossoms upon a single stem ; as in the 
instance of a beautiful early flower of life, known by 
the hard scientific name of Zoothamnmm arhuscula^ — 
the tree-like creature, — which consists of a main stem 
giving off several branches, on each of which numerous 
bell-shaped animalcules, ''like foxgloves or Canterbury 
bells," are borne. It is a compound organism, and 
exists in its lowly loveliness as another and pleasing 
sign of the direction which nature is following towards 

1 Hertwig, Die Zelle und die Gewebe, B. ii. s. 14. 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 65 

organized life. In this specimen, moreover, we find still 
another indication of advance along this same line, for 
the blossoms, or zooids, as the living units are called, 
are seen on close inspection to be not all quite 
alike. Most of them are bell-shaped, but here and there 
among them are found larger bodies of a globular form, 
and in some other respects different from the rest. 
They cannot draw in nourishment as do the others ; 
but if we watch them we shall see that they have 
acquired a function and a use of their own; for they 
will become detached from the parent stock, "swim 
about freely for a time, then settle down, develop a stalk 
and mouth, and finally, by repeated fission, give rise 
to the new adult, tree-like colony." This sign shows 
that nature, proceeding with quiet determination in the 
direction of organization, has now clearly, unmistakably 
introduced the method never afterwards to be abandoned 
of division of labor. The same tree-stock has produced 
two kinds of cells — nutritive zooids, and reproductive 
zooids.^ Associated life in two kinds has been humbly 
begun; and once begun it will continue on the earth 
as the more excellent way. We pause to note the im- 
portance of this fact. The advent of life in two kinds, 
vegetative and sexual, is one of early nature's great 
events. A principle of utmost value for the develop- 
ment of life has thus been quietly introduced. The 
division of living matter into two complementary parts 
— the nutritive and the reproductive cells — shall ere- 
long become the prevailing and more and more elaborate 
method of vital evolution. In this far off and humblest 

1 Parker, Elem. Biol. pp. 134 sq. 
5 



QQ THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

beginning of sex in these primitive colonies of cells, lies 
tlie first promise and potency even of our human life in 
the help-mating and help-meeting of man and woman. 
This principle of mutuality, this fine idea of division of 
labor and of mutual service, once gained in nature, shall be 
carried clear through to its human consummation. What 
God in the beginning hath thus joined together even in 
life's first motions, cannot henceforth be put asunder. 

This new and better way of mutually helpful life hav- 
ing once been entered into, nature follows it up vigor- 
ously with ever fresh, more differentiated and mutually 
dependent forms. Not far removed from the primitive 
colonies just described is another creature, the Siphono- 
jpJiores 1 in which the division of labor becomes a little 
more marked and enduring between different parts 
which grow together on the same tree-like stock ; some 
of them serve the whole for the purpose of swimming, 
some for feeding, and others for reproducing the species. 
As nature hastens on through these gradations it reaches 
in time organisms which show in their development 
distinct layers of cells, from which entirely different 
organs for definite use, but in mutual dependence, may 
be developed. The common hydras, or polypes, mark 
the beginnings of this further course of evolution of 
separate but mutually serviceable organs in one body ; 
and so the process in this good direction, according to 
this happy idea of nature, goes on and on until in the 
higher animals and in our own anatomy we reach the 
end and perfection of this long way of organization for 
life. It has been a long way from the two layers of 

1 Hertwig, Die Zelle und die Geivebe, p. 18. 



THE FACT OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 67 

cells in a polype to the many associated organs in the 
body of a man ; but nature has followed this way, and 
in some manner has been directed through this one way, 
and held to its course ; and the end which is reached 
justifies the direction which from the start has been 
taken. The introduction and growth of the principle 
of division of labor, marks, we are reasoning, one 
definite line of direction which evolution has actually 
taken. It is a course of nature from something to 
something, which may be scientifically drawn. 

Other lines of direction which may be traced on 
nature's map, we shall next follow up ; and then with 
the facts well before us from the least to the greatest, 
we may reason with more confidence concerning the 
character of the guidance of evolution. We may then 
be able to judge who was the better reasoner, Kepler, the 
astronomer, or his wife in their discussion of the salad 
at their supper-table: "Yesterday," the astronomer 
relates, " when weary with writing, and my mind quite 
dusty with considering the atoms, I was called to 
supper, and a salad I had asked for, was set before 
me. It seems then, I said, that if pewter dishes, leaves 
of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of vinegar and oil, and 
slices of eggs, had been floating about in the air from all 
eternity, it might at last happen by chance that there 
would come a salad. ' Yes,' said my wife, ' but not so 
nice and well dressed as this of mine is.' " If it re- 
quires intelligence to make so nice a salad, perhaps we 
may find good reason to suspect that Mind may have 
had considerable part to play in the evolution of such 
a world as ours. 



CHAPTER IV 

DIRECTION IK THE HISTOEY OF LIVING CELLS 

In the last chapter we traced the indications of some 
directing agency through inorganic development, in the 
earliest organization of life within the cell, and still 
further in the association of cells in colonies, and the 
advancing organization of the vegetal and animal world 
upon the principle of division of labor and mutual ser- 
vice. The signs of some direction in evolution will 
become apparent again and distinct, if we follow more 
particularly the embryological development of living 
matter from its beginnings in the egg-cell through its 
successive stages to the full grown adult form. We 
shall discover impressive evidences that some thing 
determines and guides evolution, if with pure and 
reverent eyes we gaze into the mystery of the reproduc- 
tion of plant and animal life. Amid secrets of origins 
which eye cannot see, and from a sacred mystery of 
birth and inheritance which no science can wholly re- 
move, one truth becomes clear and sure, — the truth 
that there is a predetermined and specific direction of 
every species and of each organ of the body in the 
prenatal development of life. Embrj^ological develop- 
ment follows with unwavering fidelity fixed lines of 
growth. Embryology is one of the exact sciences 

68 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 69 

because it rests upon these primal fidelities of living 
nature to the decrees of perfection which are already 
determined within the egg-cell. 

It is now scientifically known that a few dots of 
microscopic matter, more or less, within the Qg^^ deter- 
mine the whole subsequent life-history; and further 
that from these determinants put at the beginning in 
the Qgg^ — an exact number of them for each species, — 
the embryological development proceeds with an un- 
varying constancy in response to the environment. 
Two facts here are significant. The one is this : for 
each species the number of chromosomes in the nucleus 
of the egg-cell is always the same. The chromosomes, 
as we have seen, are the loops of darkly staining matter 
in the cell, which are exactly halved in each division 
of it.^ Now the remarkable discovery has been made 
that these chromosomes vary in number with different 
species, but that in every egg for each species the same 
number of them is to be counted. Each species has its 
specific number of chromosomes which regularly recurs 
in the division of all of its cells, and from which no 
variations are known to occur. For instance — to 
mention a few so as to make this characteristic stand 
clearly out — the Qgg of the worm Ascaris^ one variety 
of it, has two chromosomes ; in the egg of the mouse 
the number is twenty-four, and a similar number char- 
acterizes also the trout and the lily ; in he Qgg of the 
grasshopper the number is twelve ; in the ovum of the 
ox sixteen ; of man the same number, or possibly more.^ 

1 See Figure 2, p. 34. 

2 Wilson, The Cell, p. 67, 206. 



70 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

The constancy of these specific loops of matter within 
the Qgg, is almost startling in its significance. By them 
for every species the adult form is predetermined long 
before birth, far back in the darkness from which the 
light of life shall dawn. The direction was taken very 
early before it was light. A specific, unmistakable sign 
of the way in which life is to go, has been put by nature 
far away toward the beginnings in every least Qgg. The 
sign consists of a dot or two, more or less, of matter 
which itself is more definitely constituted than any mi- 
croscope can disclose. These eggs, by virtue of the 
number of their chromosomes, are so many specific 
words of life ; and each of them is spelled always with 
the same number of letters. By means of certain 
minute particles of matter, and their arrangement 
within the nucleus, the question has been already set- 
tled for each Qgg into what it shall grow, — a thread of 
grass, a worm, a deer in the forest, a bird in the air, — 
a child in a human home. 

The other of the two facts, indicative of direction, 
which are to be found in the study of embryology, will 
appear as follows. After development has started in 
each Qgg according to its kind, as determined by its 
specific organization, biology can trace with great partic- 
ularity through successive stages the process of embry- 
onic growth. And in this growth likewise everything goes 
on with precision, and along definite lines. Observers 
have succeeded in following the course of the cells in 
successive divisions, so that to some extent they can trace 
the lineage of the original cells in the forming tissues and 
organs. The descent of the several organs of the body 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 71 

from original layers of cells, is now a demonstrated fact of 
physiology. It is unnecessary to describe in these pages 
the exact and interesting details which are given in full 
in our latest text-books of physiology. 

Moreover, comparative physiology seeks to demon- 
strate how far in the development of different species 
these lines of cell-growth run parallel, and where they 
diverge from each other ; and it is a well ascertained fact 
that in every species, either of plants or of animals, the 
direction of developing life which has once been taken, 
is never afterwards missed ; it is nowhere abandoned for 
another ; the right ways of growth for that specific form 
are followed with unerring combinations of cells, and 
with sure arrangements and co-ordination of the develop- 
ing parts. At this point a new question emerges, and 
one which it puzzles our investigators to answer. How 
is it that these separate cells, which we have discovered 
in the marvel of their individual existence, have come 
to work so perfectly together? How has it come to 
pass that their cleavages are adapted to each other, so 
that they multiply and grow together, in the unity of em- 
bryonic growth ? What co-ordinates them ? What directs 
them to form all together one body ? Professor Wilson 
rightly observes, " There is at present no biological 
question of greater moment than the means by which 
the individual cell-activities are co-ordinated and the 
organic unity of the body maintained." ^ If this ques- 
tion is of prime importance from a purely biological 
position, it is even more significant from the philo- 
sophical point of view. 

1 Opus cit. p. 58. 



72 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Keeping to our method of asking first for the facts, 
we inquire what is known as to the mutual relations and 
physiological action of these many cells which constitute 
a single body. We must answer, not much as yet is 
known. The cells of a tissue like a muscle, for instance, 
appear to be separated from one another by a non-living 
intercellular substance — the cell walls. But it is not 
certain that they are so severed, and some organic connec- 
tions seem to have been traced between them. Some 
observers have detected fine protoplasmic threads, or 
intercellular bridges, between different cells. It is held 
that some organic continuity between the protoplasm of 
the cells, although not true of all the cells in the adult 
body, is more probably true of the earher embryonic 
stages. One of our American workers in this field 
asserts that she has actually seen in the Qgg of an echi- 
noderm the separated cells and groups of cells (jblasto- 
meres) spinning fine filaments of protoplasm, by which 
direct protoplasmic continuity is established between 
them after each division.^ The evidence, which is accum- 
ulating in this direction, may lead our science to the view 
that a living body is practically a continuous mass of 
protoplasm, and that the individual cells of it are, as 
Professor Wilson suggests, " local centres of a formative 
power pervading the growing mass as a whole." ^ But 
what then is this formative power of the organism as 
one living whole ? 

There are some biologists who are inclined to lay 

1 Mrs. E. A. Andrews, The Living Substance, Sup. to Jour, of Mor- 
phology, V, xii. No. 2. 

2 Wilson, The Cell, p. 59. 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 73 

increasing stress upon this influence of the organism as 
a whole over the parts of which it is formed.^ Their 
position is defined as that of the " organism standpoint." ^ 
They maintain that the body as a whole has some deter- 
minative influence over the growth of its parts. One 
characteristic of this direction of the individual cells by 
the organism as a whole, if this be the true biological 
view, appears to be especially noteworthy, — the man- 
ner, namely, in which different phases of the embryolog- 
ical development are timed to each other. The timing 
of things together is always an interesting aspect of our 
observation of life. One of the signal indications of 
providence in the world at large and in the biographies 
of men is afforded by just the right timing of things, so 
that at the effective moment different events from 
widely separated quarters are seen to converge, and in- 
dependent forces are found working together for good. 
This right coincidence of things for us is often re- 
markable in our individual experiences. How often it 
has happened that gates, at which we may have long 
been knocking, have remained closed, as though there 
were no friendly Presence within to heed our impor- 
tunate need ; and then suddenly, when we have been 
almost ready to despair, some unexpected conjunction 
of circumstances has occurred, a door of opportunity just 
at the right moment has opened, as though swung by un- 
seen hands, and we have entered into life. We say that 
was providential. Now far back near life's beginnings 
a regular and remarkable timing together of different pro- 

1 See Child, C. M., Wood's Holl, Biol Lectures, 1899, pp. 232 sq. 

2 Ibid. p. 235. 



74 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

cesses appears in the development of the egg-cell. In the 
great world the hands are set together when some signal 
hour of history is striking; and in this miniature world, 
at the critical points in the development of life within 
the microcosm, the hands are set together, the time is 
kept right to the very second, and all goes well. This 
phenomenon of the mutually adaptive growth of cells in 
the time -rate of their appearance, may be observed in 
several ways and in numerous instances. In general, 
the cells multiply and take up their related positions just 
as fast and no faster than they are needed to keep the 
different parts of the embryo of a chick in the Qgg^ for 
instance, in right relations and in normal size and co-ordi- 
nation. And, in particular, special differentiations ap- 
pear at the times when the organism as a whole has need of 
them. One of the workers in this field, who has noted 
the relative time of the appearance of different parts in the 
development of the lower annelids and moUusks empha- 
sizes the fact that " the division of a single cell at other 
than the proper time would in many cases disarrange 
the whole complex." ^ He remarks that " the relative 
time of differentiation of various organs, and especially 
of the early larval organs, such as the prototroch, affords 
to my mind a most striking example of the interrela- 
tion of all parts of the developing Qgg'^ ^ He observes 
that in each case the differentiation occurs at such a 
time that the parts, which he has been studying, shall 
be prepared to perform their function when called upon 
by the environment. For instance, where the larva 

1 Child, C. M., Wood's Holl, Biol Lectures, 1899, p. 233. 

2 Ibid. p. 242. 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 75 

swims at a very early stage, the cilia, the hairlike oars, 
that is, by which it swims appear correspondingly early. 
But in other cases the matter from which these cilia 
are put forth (trochoblasts^ remains apparently at rest, 
perhaps for a long while, until, some time before they 
are needed, the differentiation takes place. He says : 
" The energy of the egg is so exactly distributed 
that none is wasted in the development of organs 
before they are needed." " The different time relations 
in the division of the various cells indicate the nicest 
adjustment to prevailing conditions." ^ It is no wonder 
that this investigator finds in such timing of the cells to 
one another and to their mutual work, evidence of the 
closest relation between the different parts of the organ- 
ism. But the fundamental question abides : How have 
the parts become so timed? What is the mechanism 
involved in it? And what Power has set the hands 
together to keep true time on this microscopic clock ? 
We glance here down a very interesting line of in- 
vestigation which our biologists have not as yet followed 
through. The facts already observed, however, are cer- 
tainly striking. For example, a recent number of a 
botanical magazine contains an account of some studies 
in the development of slime-molds, which are organ- 
isms of a low order. These researches show that in one 
species examined the division of the cell-substance and 
the cleavage of the nucleus are not brought about 
simultaneously by the same apparatus, and are in their 
mechanism independent. Yet the two processes are 
so timed together as to secure a constant result.^ 

1 See Child, C. M., Wood's Roll, Biol Lectures, 1899, p. 243. 

2 See Bot. Gazette, October, 1900, pp. 225 sq. 



76 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Again, Mr. Lillie from his studies of the lineage of cells 
in one of the fresh-water bivalves concludes not only 
that the direction and the rate of cleavage of the divi- 
sions of cells are correlated, but also that the sizes of 
the earlier-formed cells in this process of cell-division 
are directly related to the future adult parts. ^ Professor 
Wilson also is so impressed with the precision of the 
successive phenomena in the cleavage products of the 
developing egg that he writes of it in this manner : " In 
this regard the cleavage of the ovum often goes for- 
ward with a wonderful clock-like precision, gi\T.ng the 
impression of a strictly ordered series in which every 
division plays a definite role and has a fixed relation to 
all that precedes and follows it." ^ 

From this general sketch of the processes through 
which life increases, acquires distinct organs, and is 
wondrously built up and adapted to specific uses, we 
proceed to consider such explanations of these determin- 
ations of nature as may have been scientifically sug- 
gested. 

A first biological duty is to find out as much as can 
be known of the mechanism of life. How are the sev- 
eral parts of a cell or an organism physicallj^ put together, 

1 Wood's Holl, Biol. Lectures, 1898, pp. 43-66: Morph. Journal, X. 
1895. This view is confirmed also by Wilson and others, The Cell, p. 
378. 

2 The Cell, p. 378. See also Dr. 0. L. Zur Strassen, Factors in Mor- 
phogenesis, Jour. Roy. Mic. Soc, October, 1899, p. 469. Zool. Cent. Blatt, 
vi. 1899, pp. 400-402. He holds that the really determinative factor is the 
fine internal mechanism. " It is as if the segmentation cell had a guiding 
instinct." This is illustrated by cases where the blastomeres move spon- 
taneously but definitely. Tensions and pressures are insufficient to ex- 
plain the changes of form and the cytotropic wanderings. 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 11 

and made to work as a living mechanism? When 
however we search the scientific magazines for an 
answer to this question we shall find ourselves often 
reminded of the builders of Babel; for our biologists 
speak in different tongues, inventing many and uncouth 
names for the same things, and they often succeed ad- 
mirably in putting one another to confusion. Never- 
theless, with some careful attention on our part, the 
main theories which they have to suggest may be 
understood. 

As one theory, the effort is made to analyze and to ac- 
count for living processes by applying to them the laws 
of mathematical physics. Starting, that is, with certain 
living molecules as the elements of life's problem, we 
are to understand their transformations upon purely 
physical principles, by means of mathematical computa- 
tions of stress and strain, and the relative position of 
these particles in space. The phenomena of life in 
short are to be quantitatively studied as a complicated 
series of mathematical equations. 

Another main direction which the investigation of 
vital processes pursues, is the determination of their 
chemical constitution and processes. This is the ap- 
pointed task of chemical phj^siology. Given the vital 
chemical elements, or units, we seek to know more pre- 
cisely how they may combine, and dissolve, and recom- 
bine, and what may come forth from such very complex 
and unstable chemical conditions. These two re- 
searches, the physical and the chemical, are not opposed, 
but parallel investigations ; and when their results are 
summed up in some attempted formula for life, they 



78 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

yield a physico-chemical description of it. In this way 
we seek to render a purely mechanical account of vital 
phenomena. This investigation is naturally the first 
one that should be made ; and biology must constantly 
return to it in order to keep in close touch with the 
facts. It is doing scientifically what the child does 
spontaneously, when it pulls a flower or a plaything to 
pieces to see how it is made, or works. Certainly some 
progress has been gained in this mechanical account of 
vital operations, and up to a certain point the conduct 
of living matter may be brought under mechanical con- 
ceptions ; for it is matter, as any engine is material ; 
and it is composed of subtle chemical complexes stored 
with energy, as any working machine is a means of 
transference of energy. The molecules of a living body 
remain physical quantities ; or perhaps it would come 
nearer our exceedingly abstract physical science nowa- 
days to speak of them more respectfully as so many 
physical ideas. The curious experiments which biolo- 
gists have made in shaking eggs, for instance, into 
pieces, or in putting them in different geometric posi- 
tions and under various compressions, or even in setting 
the mechanism of fertilization going and keeping it up 
for a little while by treating some eggs with special 
chemical stimuli, — all these ingenious manipulations 
of the vital units afford some definite results, and serve 
to throw light over the mechanical side of life. Some- 
thing indeed looking like the mechanism of cell-division 
has been produced by a skilful imitative manipulation 
of drops of oil, and the venture has been made of con- 
structing wire models of this vital mechanism. We 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 79 

may expect that with still more exact minuteness of 
measurement, and with even subtler refinement of 
chemical research, we may learn more of the mechanics 
of the infinitely small. But it is another question 
which we shall take up later on, whether mathematics, 
in the utmost extension of its physical rule, can explain 
the concrete reality of the whole world, or of a single 
atom of it. 

Proceeding from such knowledge as may be had of 
the physico-chemical side of life, biology finds the larger 
question opening before it : How has the mechanism 
of life been worked as a whole, and how are the methods 
or laws of its working to be formulated ? This larger 
problem is not scientific in the stricter sense ; it is 
partly philosophical ; for it is an endeavor to discover 
the rationale of the machine. In this connection it is 
a noteworthy fact, as one of the American biologists, 
Professor Osborn, has remarked that " the basis of our 
modern methods of studying the evolution problem was 
established not by the early naturalists, nor by the 
speculative writers, but by the philosophers. They 
alone were upon the main track of modern thought." i 

We must turn, accordingly, for further light upon 
the facts of direction in nature which we have been 
surveying, to our modern scientific philosophies of evo- 
lution. Since Darwin, however, evolutionists seem to 
be farther and farther at sea in their theories of evolution. 
They may all come into the same port together some 
day, but they are sailing on quite different courses at 
the present hour. Let us return to nature, let us be 
1 As quoted in the Science of Life, Thomson, p. 216. 



80 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

sceptical at present of all theories and explanations, — 
that is becoming to-day the prevailing cry in this whole 
field of scientific research. The workers in it are agreed 
in the first article of the evolutionary creed, viz., the 
doctrine of descent ; they believe with scientific una- 
nimity in the genetic descent of all living creatures as 
a continuous process under natural laws. But they are 
further than ever from agreement as to the factors of 
evolution, or as to the relative parts to be assigned to 
different factors in the descent of life. They are agreed 
generally as to the validity of Darwin's great generaliza- 
tion, the law of natural selection ; they are not at all 
agreed as to the extent of the reign of that law, or its 
sufficiency in the evolution of the organic kingdom. 
They are unanimous in their general conception of 
evolution as the method by which the unity of nature 
has been secured ; they differ in their ideas concerning 
the forces of evolution, known or unknown, w^hich are 
the efficient causes of the rich manif oldness of the world. 
If we seek to classify these divergent views, to bring into 
some order these variant theories, three conceptions of 
the evolutionary method may be mentioned as now 
pre-eminent. 

The first is the view of the New Darwinians. They 
bring to the front the principle of natural selection as 
the chief law of evolution. The principle of the sur- 
vival of the fit, or more accurately of the extermination 
of tho unfit, is so well known that we need not delay to 
illustrate it. Mr. Darwin perceived and demonstrated 
its working in many before unobserved and unsuspected 
ways ; — that was his great merit. But the newer Dar- 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 81 

winians go beyond the master in their extension and 
application of his law. They hold not only that the 
struggle of existence occurs between organisms and 
their surroundings, but also that a conflict takes place 
between their parts. They carry this principle of con- 
flict and survival even within the cell and among the 
determinants of the germ. Natural selection is to 
Weismann the all-sufficient principle — the skeleton 
key, as it were, which fits every lock, and opens any 
door in nature. If other factors enter, they play a 
subordinate part. Everything, according to this view, 
from the initial struggle of life within the egg- cell up 
to the most specialized and perfected animal form, has 
been determined under the sufficient principle of natural 
selection. One might roughly describe, without intend- 
ing to caricature, this philosophy of evolution by saying 
that the egg-cell is nature's secret caucus, where every- 
thing is well arranged beforehand, her successful can- 
didates picked out, and her subsequent proceedings 
determined ; and that therein the one principle of 
natural selection is the controlling boss. According to 
this theory only germinal variations, or modifications 
which transpire within the germinal matter of a body, 
are perpetuated and selected ; individual modifications 
of the body or its organs count for nothing. Bodily 
characteristics, such as the mutilation of a part, or the 
acquired skill of a pianist's fingers, cannot be directly 
transmitted to the offspring. Everything that comes to 
pass on nature's field of life has first to go through 
the secret caucus within the germ-cell. 

This theory — Weismann's speculation — which we 

6 



82 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

will not attempt now to follow further into its abstruse 
details, is a marvel of scientific ingenuity. As one 
reads it in Weismann's own writings rather than in 
the statements which others have given of it, he cannot 
fail to be impressed with the masterly intellectual pro- 
cess in which it has been wrought out; but it is too 
artificially constructed to endure, and it raises at many 
points more difficulties than it removes. Weismann 
began his great work with the perception that we have 
no theory of heredity, and he sought to find one. The 
failure of the theory which he elaborated to command 
general scientific assent, only emphasizes anew his 
original remark, "We have no theory of heredity." 

We have, however, a second school of modern philo- 
sophic observers — the Neo-Lamarckians. Lamarck as- 
serted that variations in organs may be occasioned by use 
or disuse, as a muscle may be increased by exercise, or a 
neck possibly lengthened in time by overmuch stretch- 
ing; and Lamarck assumed that such bodily modifica- 
tions may be transmitted to offspring, and so added to 
the stock by inheritance. Weismann challenged that 
assumption. But the Neo-Lamarckians maintain strictly 
the inheritance of acquired bodily modifications, and 
consequently they are disposed to relegate the principle 
of natural selection to a secondary place, wliile they make 
more of inherent forces of organic growth. They hold 
that the natural growth of an organism, its inherent 
growth-force, tends towards vital adaptations, in response 
to outward influences, and hence to progress in the line 
of definite and cumulative variations. Their answer 
concerning the method of evolution, broadly speaking, 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 83 

would be this : Progressive evolution has taken place 
through increasing structural adaptations to the en- 
vironment, according to the inherent or self-adaptive 
powers of an organism, aided perhaps at times by 
natural selection. 

Besides these two conflicting views a third view, or 
rather a third class of views is coming into biological 
favor. These conceptions may be regarded as mediat- 
ing theories between the other two. It has been sug- 
gested by Mr. Lloyd Morgan and others, that although 
acquired bodily modifications may not be directly trans- 
mitted and inherited, they may be indirectly ; modifica- 
tions in the body- cells may work together with germinal 
variations as a favorable environment for them, and so 
in many instances what the individual acquires in his 
own body may indirectly at least count for something in 
the line of descent for his offspring.^ Perhaps the 
biological philosophy, or conception of the method of 
evolution now most in favor is that represented by the 
German, Oscar Hertwig, and others who hold similar 
views: evolution is due, they would tell us, not to one, 
but to many factors ; its law is not simply that of natu- 
ral selection ; it is that, and other laws combined with 
it. Life in its development and perfecting is a response 
to many influences, and its history is to be understood 
only as we shall discover and trace the co-operation 
of many factors, external and internal, in its evolu- 

1 See among the most recent writers, Prof. J. C. Ewart, The Experi- 
mental Study of Variation, Nature, Sept. 12, 1901, pp. 482 sq. He regards 
the soma as the immediate environment of the germ-cells, and thinks that 
variations of the germ-cells may result from the direct action on them of 
their immediate environment. 



84 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tion.^ We are by uo means sure that we know them all. 
There are signs here and there, some think, of an 
unknown power in evolution. The advancing hne of 
life is the meeting-point of inner and outward poten- 
cies. The whole problem is not to be contained in a 
single formula. Life in its manifold versatility cannot 
be caught in the simple net of natural selection which 
the newer Darwinians have spread for it in vain. 

The supreme fact, of which all theories seek to render 
some account, is the fact of direction in nature. We 
are concerned in this connection with theories of evolu- 
tion so far as they may help us understand what the 
method of direction throughout nature has been. To 
some extent they do show the method, or how nature 
has led life along its upward way ; viz., — with mechan- 
ical fidelity, with chemical assiduity, with ceaseless 
discrimination and selection, in a method which may 
perhaps best be described, broadly speaking, as the 
continuous adjustment and readjustment of inner and 
outward factors and conditions. But in natural science 
it always is, as it so often is with us in climbing a 
mountain ; we gain one summit only to find another 
still higher to climb. By these biological theories we 
do not gain the last height of interpretation. We have 
confronting us the further and immense question : 
What is the highest meaning of evolution ? What 
above all does this unmistakable fact of direction 
throughout the organic kingdom mean? 

It belongs to the higher biology to search this prob- 

1 See Hertwig, Biological Problems of To-day, p. 136 : Die Zelle und 
die Gewebe, B. ii. ss. 73, 271 sq. 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 85 

lem. And the biologists themselves are at this point 
our best witnesses. As thoughtful observers they can- 
not rest satisfied with a merely mechanical explanation 
of the organic realm. The laws under which things 
move, are not the sovereign power in this or any king- 
dom. The modes of working are not the causes of the 
work done ; as the mechanism of a locomotive is not 
the reason why it moves, and at certain rates, along a 
defined track, to a predetermined terminus. Some- 
thing besides the locomotive is needed to explain both 
the locomotive and its motions. A description of the 
methods of nature's operations, however scientific, is not 
knowledge of the energy which moves through all things, 
and holds the universe to its course. None realize this 
more clearly than some of the most eminent biological in- 
vestigators. Oscar Hertwig, for example, who is one of 
the most eminent students of cell-life, regards biology 
as a province in which mechanism in- the strict sense of 
the physicist is in a very limited manner applicable ; 
and in most cases the words mechanics and mechanism, 
when used in biology, he says, "have no real con- 
tents " ; — they are words which conceal our ignorance.^ 
^' No one," he declares, " can tell through a physical- 
chemical analysis why at this place or that, under ten- 
sion and pressure certain cells form a little beam of 
bone, why here cells secrete saliva-ferments, there 
have become adapted to the perception of light or 
sound or smell, or arranged together for an eye, or a 
labyrinth for hearing or smelling. We can, it is true, 
perceive and understand that everywhere these forma- 

1 Zeit- und Streitfragen der Biologie, Heft 2, ss. 18-19. 



86 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tions have relations to the nature which surrounds them, 
which physically and chemically can be recognized and 
understood as necessary ; but the nature-process itself, 
which has brought them forth, the activity of the cells, 
which calls all these purposive formations into life, is 
to us as unintelligible as a process of feeling and 
thinking which plays itself out in the apparatus of our 
senses and nerves." ^ 

We might cite similar expressions from eminent 
biological investigators, if only for the purpose of a 
warning against the superficially smart utterances of 
some students who will speak as though a century's 
science had reduced everything vital and intelligent 
to the dead level of a mechanical world ; as though 
the wonder of the ages of progressive evolution, 
the hving cell, were reduced to a simple mechanical 
contrivance like a steam-engine ; — an engine of life 
indeed, which not only goes, but which lays its own 
track, starts itself, and stops when ready; which im- 
proves itself also as it goes along, and produces from 
itself other mechanisms even better than itself ; for that 
is what the engine in an organic cell will do, give it 
time. Further citations of a similar tenor, however, 
may be rendered unnecessary if we add the following 
declaration of so pronounced an agnostic as Karl 
Pearson, which hits the biological mechanics fairly on 
the head : " Clearly those who say meclianism cannot 
explain life are perfectly correct, but then mechanism 
does not explain anything. Those, on the other hand, 
who say mechanism cannot describe life are going far 

1 Die Zelle und die Gewebe, B. ii. s. 258. 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 87 

beyond what is justifiable in the present state of our 
knowledge." ^ 

Turning again from the authorities to the facts — 
nature itself being always the final authority — several 
recently observed instances may be adduced which show 
the insufiiciency of any merely mechanical theories of 
the living world. One is the conduct under different 
kinds of stimulation of minute unicellular animals, such 
as inhabit in considerable numbers a drop of water 
suitable for their swarming. It has been held by some 
writers that the movements of these simplest living 
things, when stimulated, are just like the movements 
which characterize inorganic substances under certain 
conditions ; and hence by identifying similar motions 
among chemicals and among Infusoria it was supposed 
that a long step was taken toward that "analysis of 
vital processes into simple chemical and physical ones, 
which is deemed by many the final goal of biological 
science." But under closer examination this apparent 
similarity between some chemical motions and simple 
physiological movements has resolved itself into real 
differences. When the investigations were carried out 
more thoroughly, it was observed that unicellular 
organisms do not behave as chemical particles do. 
The organism is discovered to have its own peculiar 
way of reacting to stimulus. We know that it is so in 
the case of a man who has taken a drop too much : and 
we know now also that organic reactions to stimulation 
begin with the very cells, and in their own peculiar, 
and not merely chemical way. For thorough investiga- 

^ Grammar of Science, p. 344. 



88 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tion has shown that the reaction of these animalcules 
is distinctly physiological, and not merely physical; 
organic, and not purely chemical. If one of these 
unicellular bodies meets with anything that acts as a 
stimulus upon it, it will respond uniformly according to 
its own nature first by swimming backwards, then by 
swimming always towards the same side, and then by 
swimming forward again. Only, in some cases, when it 
is strongly stimulated directly from behind, it will 
respond according to its infinitesimal degree of in- 
telligence, shall we say? by swimming straight ahead 
somewhat faster.^ Now these motions are not purely 
physical ones, like that of particles of steel drawn 
towards a magnet. They do not resemble the manner 
of any known chemical reactions. They have their 
own character. Life in its first cells has its proper 
organic responses to make. Internal factors are oper- 
ative in simplest organic reactions. " The organism," 
we are told by the observer, " reacts as an individual, 
not as a substance." ^ 

A different instance, which discloses the same principle 
of organic rather than mechanical response, is furnished 
by Professor Wilson. We shall have to be somewhat 
technical in the description of it, but as it is one of 
those small things in nature easily escaping observation, 
which mean very much, we may take some pains to 
understand it. When cells divide and multiply, the 
spindles in them sometimes arrange themselves some- 

1 Jennings, H. S., " Behaviour of Unicellular Organisms," Wood's Holl, 
Biol. Lects. 1899, pp. 93 sq. 
^ Ibid. p. 111. 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 89 

what in the form of a spiral ; this is spoken of in the 
books as spiral cleavage. Now there is a well known 
mechanical principle, which would cause these dividing 
cells to be arranged one after another with the least 
possible contact of their surfaces, very much as a suc- 
cession of soap bubbles will just touch each other. To 
some extent this mechanical principle has been observed 
among multiplying cells. But in some instances of 
spiral cleavage this mechanical order of arrangement 
becomes subordinated to some quite different principle. 
Thus in the development of annelids and moUusks, 
where at first the cells are divided and multiplied in a 
spiral, that arrangement shortly is changed for a very 
different form ; it gives way, says Professor Wilson, 
*' more or less completely to a bilateral type of division 
in which the rule of minimum surface contact is often 
violated." That is, we see in such instances a mechan- 
ical law by some means suspended in the development 
of the Qgg, and some other principle intervenes and 
becomes controlling. Or, to continue quoting Professor 
Wilson: "We see here a tendency operating directly 
against, and finally overcoming, the mechanical factor 
which predominates in the earlier stages ; and in some 
cases, e. g. in the Qgg of Clavelina and other tunicates, 
this tendency predominates from the beginning." ^ 
Another American biologist has called attention to 
a curious fact of behavior within the Qgg of a fresh- 
water bivalve, which presents a similar puzzle to a 
purely mechanical theory of vital movements. Study- 
ing with minutest particularity the division of cells and 

1 Opus cit. p. 369. 



90 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

the growth of the body in this specimen, he noticed 
that the nucleus of the Qgg wandered through the cyto- 
plasm (the substance of the Qgg) from one side to the 
other, from the front to the back, stopping at various 
stations, and giving off a cell at each one. Finally the 
nucleus stopped at the centre of the cell, and a perfectly 
bilateral spindle was formed. " Why," he asks, " does 
it stop there? Is it because its environment has 
changed? If so, the change is such as to elude the 
closest scrutiny." His answer to this puzzle of ap- 
parently definite, constructive movement within the 
cell is this : "In fact the cell is a builder which lays 
one stone here, another there, each of which is placed 
with reference to future development." ^ 

In connection with these facts one general observa- 
tion may be added. When we overtake natural selec- 
tion in its operation, we do not then come upon the fact 
of direction for the first time within our knowledge. 
Direction is prior in nature to selection. Natural selec- 
tion marks a second, not the first point where science 
may lay hold of nature. For the fact of some determi- 
nation of things exists before the fact of any selection 
between them. Before ever natural selection could 
begin to work, some fixed points had to be gained from 
which it might work. Selection lies in nature between 
units at least of living matter which already are deter- 
minate. Before the fitness of an organism to survive 
can be tested, there must be given its capacity to live at 
all. A flowing stream makes no selection among the 

1 Lillie, F. R., " The Embryology of the Uuionidae," Journal of Morphol- 
ogy, X, 1895, p. 46. 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 91 

breaking bubbles on its surface. Specific forms in the 
organic realm must appear and be held firm long enough 
to afford a basis for favorable variations. Variation is 
from something already formed to something better or 
perhaps worse formed. The biological problem goes 
deeper than a guess at the possible causes of variations. 
How has it come to pass that organic forms have been 
held firm and true long enough to acquire an adaptive 
variation ? Some conserving force, some fixing agency, 
so to speak, must be presupposed to account for the sta- 
bility of the primal cell, for the definite number of chro- 
mosomes, as well as for the structural relations of the 
different parts of an organic growth ; and some deter- 
mining factor must be assumed at the start, whatever 
we may suppose its nature to have been. We cannot, 
in a word, have anywhere a definitely moulded form 
without some moulding, whether there appears a mould- 
ing hand or not. Nature's first problem is not merely a 
problem of forces ; it is a problem of forms ; fitness 
among these may be her next problem, the question of 
her advance ; and selection doubtless has had an im- 
portant rdle to play in explaining the preservation of fit 
forms ; but it cannot explain either the forms or their 
fitness. In other words, even if evolution may explain 
everything else, it cannot explain itself. 

We pause a moment at this point to determine just 
how far in our inquiry into the problem of direction in 
nature we have thus far gone. We began by observing 
various phenomena which show the fact of some direc- 
tion in the evolution of the worlds. We learn what we 



92 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

may concerning the meclianism by means of which life 
runs along its advancing way. We have glanced at 
prevalent scientific theories for some account of the 
mode of the development of life ; and we may gain par- 
tially true conceptions of the working methods of evo- 
lution. But we have further seen that no scientific 
theory of the course of nature affords any rational ex- 
planation of it. Why nature has been so ordered, what 
power works through its continuous processes, how its 
end is predetermined, — this is not contained in any 
formula for evolution which science has to offer. The 
fact of direction we know; the mechanism and mode of 
it to some extent we think that we know ; but the sig- 
nificance of it, and the real interpretation of it, — that 
is another question. Yet it is the question put directly 
to our human reason by the facts observed. For the 
beginnings of this process of development our biolo- 
gists have to look farther than they can peer through 
their microscopes ; for the energy which carries it on 
they have to seek beyond their mathematical equations 
of its workings ; for the continuity and constancy of 
its course, for the unity undertying it all, they have to 
venture out into the presence of some power which can- 
not be subjected to their experiments. The profounder 
our knowledge of the process of nature the greater be- 
comes the demand for our understanding of it of some 
draft upon the unseen and the eternal. Evolutionary 
philosophy must honor that draft. 

Before advancing to the argument, which may be 
drawn from the great nature-process, we would recall 
summarily the facts which we have successively ob- 



DIRECTION IN HISTORY OF LIVING CELLS 93 

served, that we may realize the momentum of them in 
their totality. First in our inquiry we met the fact of 
direction in inorganic evolution. That reached its end, 
and passed its energy up into the organic kingdom. 
Next we met at the beginning of the organic evolution 
the organized cell ; this organic unit, where our science 
can first lay hold of it, is known to be something already 
definitely formed. It is a structure fitted for its func- 
tion. The cell is something called and chosen for its 
specific task. Then we saw how nature proceeded to 
use these living cells in the development of the plant 
and animal world; as a happy thought in nature the 
principle of division of labor and mutual service was 
taken up and has been followed out through associa- 
tions, colonies, and mutually adapted organs, to the per- 
fection of the body in the higher animals and man. 
Then turning back again to the cell, searching anew for 
the secret of this direction and movement of life towards 
the perfection of organization, we observed the intricate 
process of its division and multiplication ; — which pro- 
cess, if it did not follow a purpose, certainly came to 
some choice results. We perceived the remarkable pro- 
vision which exists for the equal division of paternal 
and maternal elements, and for the exact specific devel- 
opment of each egg. Then we were surprised by the 
appearance of still further significant facts in the life- 
history of the cells ; such as the fact of the phenomena 
of the timing together and mutual adaptation of the 
parts and processes of the. development of the embryo, 
and the subordination also of individual cells to the use 
of the whole organism. We gained thus a new point of 



94 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

view from consideration of the organism standpoint, or 
the control of the individual parts by the organism as a 
whole. Furthermore all these elements and problems 
of direction in nature which are striking enough in the 
original egg-cell, are multiplied, diversified, gathered 
into one stupendous fact of organic direction in the 
ascent of life, as it reaches its latest and highest achieve- 
ments of power, beauty, and harmony, of instinct, self- 
conscious thought, and love. In the simplest statement 
of the facts we have presented to us something which 
seems to transcend a merely mathematical and mechan- 
ical problem, and which looks very much on the face of 
it like an intellectual achievement. 



CHAPTER V 

INTELLIGENT CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 

The question which now fairly confronts us, and 
which no thoughtful observer of nature would wish to 
evade, is this : What is the character of the supreme 
fact of direction in nature ? 

In entering upon this further inquiry we should recall 
the principles of natural revelation which were discussed 
in the second chapter. We shall need to apply them 
from this point on repeatedly in our further study of 
evolution. 

We have observed that nature's revelation comes from 
within, shining out of her own processes, and with 
increasing self-luminousness as the evolution grows. We 
shall accordingly seek to discern the signs of character 
in nature which appear with the development of life, 
and perceive how they become more clear and are more 
impressive as the revelation through evolution grows. 

We point first to the sign of Orderliness. 

As our previous survey of the facts has shown, this 
sign is written everywhere in the history of life. It is a 
general intellectual mark upon nature as a whole. It 
does not fail, it is not blurred in the least, when we read 
it microscopically. It is an intellectual mark etched 

95 



96 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

upon the minutest structure, and to be noticed in the 
earliest functional responses of the organic world. It is 
a sign of some good ordering ; for in nature, as in a 
household, orderliness is a characteristic of good house- 
keeping ; and it is something to be recognized and under- 
stood over and above the furnishings of the house, which 
may render possible some orderly housekeeping. The 
furniture is the means, the servants are the agents, but 
not in them lies the reason of the household's order. 
Nature shows in every room, from basement to upper 
chamber, and even in its most secret closets, clean, 
economic, and orderly housekeeping. The fact of order- 
liness is a royal sign, which the triumphs of the sciences 
of the nineteenthi century hand over to the philosophy 
of our time to read and to understand. 

Let us suppose that so many pins, for example, are 
found in a paper arranged in rows. The fact that they 
are of uniform size renders it mechanically possible to 
put them up in orderly rows ; but it does not explain 
the fact that they are so put together in exact rows. 
The orderliness of their arrangement is a characteristic 
of a paper of pins in addition to their properties as pins 
which have equal lengths, and each of them a definite 
point and a head of the same size as the others. We 
are not reasoning merely from the fact, which Maxwell 
observed, that the atoms, like so many pins, have every 
appearance of being manufactured articles. Grant 
that evolution may have been the method of their 
manufacture. We are noticing the additional fact of 
their orderly arrangement. The protoplasmic order, as 
it has been called, is an arrangement of molecules and a 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 97 

dispositiou of energies which is to be considered as 
something over and above the properties of matter which 
render possible such arrangements and dispositions of it 
in organic structures for vital uses. 

Nor is this all. The illustration from a single paper 
of similar pins is not sufficient. We have to do in 
nature not with order of one kind only, but with several 
kinds of order. We should compare it not to one paper 
of pins of the same size, but to a whole work-basket, all 
arranged in good order. Nature is not a slovenly work- 
basket. We may enumerate several distinct orders, 
which are all put up together, as it were, in nature's one 
orderliness. 

1. The physical order. In it are given the atoms and 
their geometric relations together with the energy repre- 
sented by them. This is the original elementary order ; 
each element is an appearance of molecules of the same 
kind. 

2. The chemical order. The atoms are capable of 
forming combinations more or less stable with one 
another. Their relations and mutual behavior yield 
the laws of chemistry. 

3. The protoplasmic order. We find certain highly 
complex molecules, as it is supposed, combining and 
acting together in a new way which is called vital. 
The movements of a bit of protoplasm reveal the new 
order of life. 

4. Still further, the order of development, or the 
phylogenetic order. This is included partly in the 
previous order, yet it presents phenomena which so far 
transcend the initial protoplasmic order that it may be 

7 



98 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

classified by itself. It is the order of the development 
and differentiation of living matter in the succession of 
organic forms. It discloses as its distinctive character- 
istics, besides the initial properties of protoplasm, 
such phenomena as variation and heredity, adaptation 
and selection, and the subordination of the individual 
cells to the organism as a whole, and its functions. 

5. Coming to revelation through the latter orders 
with increasing self-evidence is a still higher, the 
sentient order, the order of animal intelligence. Life 
feels itself. It becomes more or less conscious life. 

6. Above this and crowning the preceding orders, 
rooted and grounded in all below, yet transcending all, 
is the order of rational life, — life interpretative of itself. 
Beyond the life feeling itself is the life reasoning about 
itself ; personal life is the order of self -interpretative 
life ; not merely self-conscious, but self-interpretative 
life. 

Such are the several orders, each having its own 
quality, each of its own distinctive kind, which never- 
theless are all bound together in natui-e's one orderly 
process. Now our immediate point is, that orderliness, 
comprehending as it does so much ordering, and of so 
many successions and kinds of things, is a great mark 
of character, a sign written large on nature for us to 
read and to be guided by. We must take in the whole 
series of orders in nature, and consider their significance 
together as one well-ordered whole, if we would inter- 
pret aright the facts of direction in the process of nature.^ 

1 See J. Morris, A New Natural Theology, for an able critical presenta- 
tion of the theistic aro;ument from the several orders of evolution. 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 99 

It is impossible for an open-eyed philosophy, it is not 
possible for a science which is not color-blind, to run 
heedlessly by this sign of orderliness which is held aloft 
over the track of evolution. It is flung out as a sign to 
be heeded by any good philosophic engineer, and to pass 
it by may lead a system of biology to speedy destruction. 

Moreover, the significance of orderliness in evolution 
is multiplied and emphasized by the repetition of this 
characteristic in each new, successive advance of evolu- 
tion. If it is not a sign of some purpose, then we must 
suppose that after the fortuitous meeting of atoms in 
the primal molecules must have followed fortuitously 
the concourse of the molecules in a hydrocarbonate, a 
proteid, an amoeba ; and still further that these must 
have fortuitously grown into the combinations of the 
body of an ascidian, a mammal, or a man. But with 
the rise of successive orders the possibility of their com- 
ing fortuitously to be, is decreased numerically by an 
indefinite power of the known quantities in nature's 
equation. The argument against a chance happening 
of orderliness increases towards the infinite with the 
advent of the most highly organized forms of life ; it 
breaks down utterly before the supreme fact of the one 
harmonized evolution of all the orders of nature. 

Suppose that from an indefinite number of ink spots 
twenty-six letters of an alphabet had in the course of 
time accidentally occurred. Grant that to be conceivable, 
although it may require a lively scientific imagination 
to conceive of its possibility. We naturally might feel 
concerning those formed letters of the alphabet as 
Clerk Maxwell thought with regard to the atoms, that 

LoFO. 



100 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

they have every appearance of raanufactured articles. 
Nevertheless, waiving the initial difficulty as to the 
formation of the original letters, imagine them to be 
fortuitous products, without sign of intelligence upon 
them. But this would be only the beginning of diffi- 
culties. This were only the first shock to our power of 
imagination. We come across on nature's first page an 
arrangement of several letters in a word — a monosyllable 
it may be — yet a word to which definite meaning be- 
longs. The arrangement of the letters in the formed 
word is a new fact to be explained. We find this ele- 
mentary word turning up here and there and everywhere 
in the course of nature : and wherever it occurs, it is 
always spelled in the same way. Its letters — those 
chromosomes in the cell — are always the same in each 
specific word of life. But tliis is only the first surprise. 
In the opening sentences of the book of life we read 
other words, formed of similar letters, longer than mono- 
syllables and more complex; and they, likewise, are 
always spelled truly, in the same definite way, each with 
its proper number of letters and syllables, of chromo- 
somes and cells. We have before us the mystery of 
many and regularly recurring words. And this opens up 
a further wonder. We turn the pages and perceive 
that these words of life are not single and detached : 
behold ! they arrange themselves in certain relations to 
each other for which they seem to be fitted. We dis- 
cover upon closer inspection that they are mutually 
adapted for such arrangement, and that when they have 
so fallen together, a new order appears — a sentence is 
composed. And still further, sentence follows sentence, 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 101 

each orderly and complete in itself, and all having ap- 
parently some connection with one another. For with 
the single sentence, having its specific significance, 
the wonder does not end. The separate sentences fall 
into groups. We mark the division and succession of 
paragraphs on nature's page. One leads up to the next. 
Each part takes meaning from the preceding, and car- 
ries it on to the following pages. We find that we can 
understand no sentence aright, if we read it out of its 
connection. Still the wonder grows ; for these larger 
paragraphs seem to belong to some great argument, 
which runs through all the sentences and words, and to 
constitute even beyond our understanding some vast 
system of thought. Our knowledge may end with the 
paragraphs and chapters which nature thus far has pub- 
lished ; we have by no means as yet read to the end the 
whole history of the creation ; we have begun to know, 
we have not yet learned all of the poem of the divine 
ideas, as Saint Augustine finely called the creation. We 
have not yet lived through to the end of Nature's great 
argument and epic of divinity. But though we know 
in part, we know ; though we have mastered but a few 
paragraphs, they have intelligible, although it be still 
broken meanings to us. And the meanings we have 
spelled out and put together, are enough to show that 
they all, with the things not yet clearly understood, 
belong together to one book of life : these parts which 
we know, have their place and time and meaning in the 
one order of intelligence which is vaster than we know.^ 

1 So Brooks argues that mechanism does not touch the question as to 
why nature is orderly. The opposite of order is not freedom but the 



102 THROUGH SCIEXCE TO FAITH 

A similar but distii.:: .<i^i^ :: n:.:.;:c to be interpreted 
is the sign of fitness. 

The quality of fitness, however it may have origi- 
nated, is a mark of character in nature ; that is, 
it signifies something. Xotice especially that in the 
mutual z::iess of organic forms ^e have to do not 
merely with a symmetrical arrangement of molecules as 
in a ii-ral; there is presented to us for our rational 
ir: : - rlon of it the sr::.:: ._ i :t that in an organ- 
ism certain parts are fitted and timed to each other for 
mutual use and the benefit of the organism as a whole, 
which taken together they compose. The fitness is a 
characteristic of the organism as a whole, and it is for 
the service of the orsranism as one liyinsr thing. There 
is given in it the new fact in nature of the adaptation of 
one part to another for some further use. Take as an 
instance a union of living cells, like the Tiydra^ where, 
as we have already noticed, the social principle of the 
division of labor makes one of its earliest appearances 
in nature's economy. It is a combination of cells, which 
are still so independent that if a hydra be cut in two, 
either half may grow into a complete hydra. Indeed 
in sc'iae recent experiments a whole hydra has been 
crrov.n from a sias^le tentacle. But these cells have be- 
gun to act in concert, and to assume specific functions, 
becoming helpful to each other in a common life, forming 

dUor ierlv ; order is not necessity, i. e., as opposed to free intelligence. See 
Foundations oj Z: : : v. This remark from a naturalist is worth qnoting, 
** Order is nor i r t ion of anything, but something that itself calls 

for explanati' L .257. See also Romanes : " Physical causation 

cannot be made to supply its own explanation.'* Thoughts on Beligiam, 
pp. 70-75. 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 103 

" a single multicellular unit." ^ We may recall without 
repeating the facts, how this vital principle of fitting 
parts together for mutual service has grown and been 
strengthened, and diversified, and how it has in time 
brought forth fruits of life of the richest value. It is 
an idea which thus grows and bears the fruit of life. 
It is the intelligible principle of organization for use. 
It is the moral idea of mutual service. If nature's first 
thought is order, her second thought is mutual service. 

This sign likewise — let us emphasize it — is some- 
thing to be interpreted by us over and above the physi- 
cal properties of life, or any mechanical methods of it, 
through which this increasing fitness may have been 
secured. It is a quality of evolution apart from its 
mechanics. The question for biological philosophy is 
not merely, how has it been wrought, but what does 
it mean ? And its significance becomes more command- 
ing as this sign of fitness is held aloft, and borne to the 
front in the battle and the triumph of life. It is one 
of nature's royal banners to be displayed because of the 
truth. 

A third, and most important characteristic of the 
principle of natural direction is the sign of increasing 
vital value. 

This mark of evolution has not thus far been clearly 
enough recognized by biological science. It may be 
definitely formulated as the law of increase of vital 
value in evolution. It will be found to be a sign pos- 
sessing great interpretative suggestiveness. 

1 Parker, ibid. p. 230. 



104 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

We cannot apply directly any scale of values to the 
inorganic world; but in the organic realm we may 
easily distinguish between the worths of different ele- 
ments or forms. We can measure the values of differ- 
ent salts to vegetables, or the worths of cereals and 
fruits, of flowers and precious stones, to animals or to 
man's enjoyment and use ; but we cannot predicate of 
inorganic tilings distinctive values in themselves apart 
from their utility to existences which are above them. 
It is only in relation to something higher that dead 
things acquire value. With the introduction of life 
there is brought in also the new element of worth. 
The kingdom of life is a kingdom of worths. Even 
in its first protoplasmic movements life is something 
which assumes its own value ; it is worth its effort to 
preserve itself. Worth in a word comes in with life. 
Everywhere the idea of worth accompanies the fact of 
life. Moreover, we may construct from vital manifes- 
tation a very excellent standard of value — a well grad- 
uated scale — by means of which we may distinguish 
between higher and lower vital worths. We may 
measure vital values with reference to two character- 
istics of the organic kingdom, — capacity for living, and 
pleasure in living. By the amount of capacity for life 
and of joy in life, the vital worth of an organism may 
be measured, or a comparative estimate be made of the 
place on the scale of life of different animals. An 
animal like a dog possessed of a complex body which 
is capable of many motions, and consequent variety of 
sensations, stands higher on the scale of vital value than 
the oyster ; as in turn a clam with its distinct nervous 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 105 

and muscular system is more highly organized and is ca- 
pable of more responsive existence to its surroundings, as 
the tide comes in, than is an amoeba which at best can 
only throw its temporary arms around a passing diatom. 
Vital value, then, is a natural sign ; and advance in 
vital value may offer a further clue to the character of 
the direction which has been actually followed in the 
development of life. This sign may become one of fine 
significance in helping us determine the moral character 
of natural development. 

A fourth characteristic of direction in nature is the 
sign of limitation. 

The directive principle works within limits in the de- 
velopment of life. Hence the character of the evolu- 
tion is to be estimated with reference to the limitations 
which are given in its sphere of action. The directing 
Power in nature cannot be judged as an unlimited Om- 
nipotence. 

We do not see the action of unlimited Omnipotence 
within any limited creation. But in our interpretation 
of the higher meaning of nature this law of limitation is 
too often overlooked ; it will be well therefore for us to 
dwell upon this sign of limitation in evolution. 

We observe that there is a limit fixed by the connec- 
tion of the order of life with the lower order of inor- 
ganic matter. The organism is in many ways still 
dependent upon the inorganic — living matter upon 
dead matter. The higher feeds upon the lower. The 
lower is always bound closely enough to the higher to 
be its servant. This mutual dependence forms an un- 



106 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

avoidable limitation under any conceivable directive 
Power in the evolution of the organic realm. Such direc- 
tive energy may transcend, but it cannot break loose 
from its relation to the inorganic world. Life in the 
drawing-room indeed has gone beyond life in the 
kitchen ; but if the freer life of the parlor should break 
its natural continuity and declare its utter freedom from 
the serving life in the kitchen, it would itself soon mis- 
erably perish. Christian Science, so-called, may attempt 
to do that ; — to live happily in a thoughtful upper 
chamber without respect to the work to be done in the 
basement, and its daily dependence upon it; it may 
attempt to cut mind loose from the limitations of the 
material ; but Omnipotence in nature has not attempted 
to do that. It is a biological truism that the plant can- 
not grow except from its roots, the eagle cannot soar 
out of the air in w^hich it spreads its wings ; and 
thought, likewise, cannot remain in this bodily organ- 
ism without dependence upon the changes which attend 
its free motions in the cells of the brain. IVIind may 
hereafter enter into different and better relations to the 
physical order in some embodiment beyond our possible 
present ; but here and now mind finds some limits in 
its existing relation to matter. It is not science to ig- 
nore them ; neither is it ever Chiistian not to be scien- 
tific. It is the plain fact of our life that the highest wliich 
we know is still bound to the lowest which we can see ; 
we belong to nature, although we are born to master it. 
Secondly, a limit to directive energy is fixed in the 
properties of the vital matter within the cell. Physical 
and chemical properties, even when combined in the 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 107 

quickly changeable, unstable proteids for the play of 
life, are still limited properties and energies. Life in 
the protoplasmic field offers to a directive Intelligence 
large and noble opportunity, but nevertheless it is a re- 
stricted field of action. If Omnipotence chooses to 
work within the confines of a living cell, there are some 
things which omnipotence cannot do within that limited 
sphere. It may develop, but it cannot at the same time 
spoil the cell. Omnipotence has been truly defined, 
not as the power to do everything, but as the power to 
do everything that can be done. It does not attempt 
the impossible either in a microscopic cell, or in the 
world around us, or in the heavens above. 

Thirdly, there is a limit fixed in the relation of 
organic forms among themselves. The organic world 
is one realm, and all its species exist in relations to each 
other. A very interesting scientific chapter concerning 
this mutual dependence of all things living may be read 
by those who care to familiarize themselves with the 
services of many kinds which insects perform both in 
the vegetable and animal economy. Probably not a 
single family of insects could be exterminated without 
consequences more far-reaching than we might foresee. 
Millions of dollars have been lost because of the visita- 
tion of some insect tribe to men's fields and orchards ; 
large investments have been saved because some other 
insect, before unknown, has been imported to rescue 
from devastation the orchards and the grain fields. 
And our obligations to the insects for the wealth and 
beauty of our world is beyond all estimate. The nat- 
ural laws of selection, survival, extermination, adaptive 



108 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

variations, are expressions of tliis general interdepen- 
dence of living things from which nothing can escape. 
But this organic mutuality acts also as a limitation 
upon any directive Power in living nature. It cannot 
do violence to the unity of life. It cannot keep life 
moving on, and at the same time break its continuity. 
It cannot spin and break life's thread at the same time. 
Otherwise it would not be a principle of order. It 
would come to destroy, and not to fulfil. 

Having thus far observed first the evidence of the 
fact of direction, and then having marked several signs 
of its character ; viz., the sign of orderliness, of fitness, 
of increasing vital value, and also of limitation ; we are 
now prepared for some conclusions concerning the char- 
acter of direction in nature. Certain inferences as to 
its ultimate quality may be drawn from the facts which 
have been adduced. 

We infer that the directive principle throughout 
nature has intelligence. 

These signs, which we have discovered, we recognize 
as characteristics of intelligent action. Such marks 
have in nature the appearance of mental traits. The 
directive energy throughout evolution acts like an in- 
telligent influence in correlation with its several orders. 
Intelligence in nature, it is true, cannot be quantita- 
tively measured, yet it may be effectively present, and 
its presence become manifest to our intelligence. The 
only cause for not accepting at once this evidence of in- 
telligence in natural direction arises from the difficulty 
of conceiving scientifically the method of its action — it 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 109 

is a difficulty, that is, of the imagination rather than of 
reason. How, it will be asked, can an energy act within 
a natural order, and be recognized, when it escapes any 
quantitative measurement in the laboratory? Stick 
to quantities, says a mathematical friend, and you will 
be right. Yes, but quantities have some immeasurable 
qualities — even the x in his equation has the quality 
of being an unknown quantity ; and the nth. power has 
the quality of the indefinite or the mathematical infinite. 
Nature possesses quality throughout. Evolution has 
the qualitative signs which we have been reviewing ; and 
they must mean something. They seem to imply intel- 
ligent action. How is that possible ? Well, the rela- 
tion between our thought and our body is nature's 
answer, at our present stage of evolution, that it is pos- 
sible : and it is answer enough, if we will not obscure 
it. Energies so different as mind and matter, as direc- 
tive power and mechanical forces, can because they do 
work together. Deny mind working directively within 
yourself, and you may also deny mind working direc- 
tively in the cells. But in such denial you have left no 
rational explanation either of the free play of your own 
mind, or of the mechanical processes of the living cell. 
Mind and matter are to us irreducible to a common 
term ; but in experience the one accompanies and acts 
upon the course of the lower factor, and the lower limits 
the power of the higher. We find in mind a true cause, 
that is, an actual directive force over the nerve centres, 
with which it is vitally related. Now we hold that we 
may discover, and that the signs of nature indicate that 
there is a similar action and reaction between all living 



110 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

matter and some Intelligence. Though, the mental fac- 
tor in evolution cannot be rendered visible, or weighed 
and verified in chemical proportions and reactions, it 
exists, and many residual phenomena show that it exists, 
in some influential relation to the whole organic process 
of the world. ^lind in some way is a determining factor 
of evolution. Mind has been persist en: in its influence 
through the entire course of natiiir. TTe know that it 
works as directive energy in us : but vre ::e : :r:>ducts of 
evolution; we caz-i: : ^^^y therefore that it has worked 
befoie us; — if it can ^ r us, it can haTe been a direc- 
tive energy in the simplest cell, and throughout tibe 
whole nature-process from which we come. TTirhin the 
limits of its propCTties the organic realm as a whcie is 
open to directive Intelligence. 

Such directive action of a superior Intelligence may 
be conceived of as occurring either continuously, or at 
certain selected and specialized points, or in both these 
modes ; in neither case would it be necessarily a con- 
tradiction, or a suspension, of the mechanical law of 
the conservation of eneigy. It may witness only to 
a limitation of that law; and the iint :.: :il of it may 
lie either in the scope of its action, or in our power to 
measure its range. It may be that in mental energy 
throughout evolution, and in its physical correlations, 
we are to recc>gnize ^n . i a form of eneigy which we 
are incompetent to determine with any measuring-rod 
now \%ithin the hand of our science. A gap in our 
knowledge may lie here, but no real break in nature's 
continuity between the spiritual and the material. Who 
oan follow the radiant energy of the sun through all its 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 111 

relations in the luminiferous ether of space, and declare 
what its ultimate transformations may be, so that noth- 
ing shall be wasted, and not a stray sunbeam lost? 
Who then can trace the more ethereal course of thought 
through the universe, and discern the utmost possibil- 
ities of its radiant energy? Indeed a puzzled astron- 
omer, in a recent article, raises the question whether 
there may not be some unknown form of energy con- 
nected with the nebulae to account for their intense 
radiance.^ We know too little even of the physical 
energies of the universe to warrant us in excluding the 
possible action and play of the force of directive In- 
telligence in nature. So Mr. Ward has argued with 
good reason : " Not only are the several forms of 
energy qualitatively distinct, but we have, I take it, 
no means of knowing that all these forms have been 
ascertained. ... But it is obvious that this possibility 
of unknown forms of energy, coupled with the probabil- 
ity that the known forms are not all mechanical, sug- 
gests many new vistas, for which it behooves us to keep 
an open mind." ^ 

The real question is not one of possibility, but of 
fact. We have already found in the facts reasons 
which compel belief in " the unknown factor of evolu- 
tion." We go a step further in the affirmation that 
this unknown factor, the working of which the phe- 
nomena of life lead us to assume, remains unknown 
only as we seek to discover its nature among the 
physical and chemical properties of living matter ; but 

1 S. Newcomb, Pop. Science Month. Iviii. p. 149. 

2 Naturalism and Atjnosticism, vol. i. p. 168. 



112 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

that it makes itself known as present and influential 
amid these properties, the moment we behold them in 
the light of onr mental life. In other words, our 
knowledge of the order of intelligence in which we 
live, sheds an interpretative light down through the 
lower orders to the very foundations on which our 
dwelling has been built. It is true knowledge, when- 
ever we can read that which is lower in nature by the 
light of that which is higher. The mental fulfilments 
interpret the animal beginnings. 

In our effort thus to interpret nature in the new light 
of evolutionary science the difficulty of the imagination 
will often be brought back to us, How can these things 
be ? It is the old difficulty in the spiritual conception 
of the world which a master of the wisdom of his day 
expressed to the great Teacher, as they were talking by 
night together alone upon the housetop under the stars, 
— How can it be ? 

The conceptual difficulty immediately before us at 
this present point of our argument relates to the cor- 
relation and co-working of intelligence and the mechan- 
ism of nature. Both exist ; the facts show mechanism, 
and the facts indicate also something that looks like 
intelligent action ; the nature-process, as Oscar HertAvig 
puts it, resembling a process of thought.^ We may 
go so far as to say that the same facts and the same 
evidence which disclose mechanism in nature, indicate 
also the intelligent operation of that mechanism. 

Life is not merely a process, it is progress ; evolution 
is not only development, it is progressive development ; 

1 Die Zelle und die Gewebe, p. 258. 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 113 

its advance may be marked and measured on the scale 
of vital values. The application of this scale of vital 
values to evolution gives an unmistakable reading ; it is 
sufficient answer to those who hold that evolution is a 
process without progress. But how is an intelligent 
natural process to be conceived? 

As a needed aid to the imagination some supposi- 
tions may be suggested which may help us in the 
effort rationally to conceive how such intelligent di- 
rection may act throughout the course of nature. We 
may refer for this purpose to an ingenious hypothesis 
which some speculative trouble with the laws of heat 
led the great physicist, Clerk Maxwell, to put forth, 
and which has become known as Maxwell's hypothesis 
of the sorting demon. He supposed that a vessel was 
made having two compartments, separated by a parti- 
tion, through a hole in which particles of matter could 
pass from one part of the vessel to the other. Then 
he conceived an intelligence presiding over it, who 
could perceive the darting molecules, as they came 
streaming towards the partition, and by deftly opening 
and shutting the hole he could sift all the molecules of 
the same kind into one compartment. Thus he imag- 
ined that through the agency of this sorting demon, 
molecules of differing velocities might be separated 
within the two compartments, and without any expen- 
diture or loss of molecular energy. So without any 
breach of the law of the conservation of energy, matter 
might be intelligently arranged and determined. The 
direction of those molecules which entered the hole 
would not have been deflected, they would not even 



114 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

have been touched; but nevertheless they would have 
been selected.^ 

This clever conception is good for its purpose ; but 
it would be carrying it too far to say that no energy is 
expended in this assortment of the molecules. The 
sorting demon in his own motions performs work, 
although he does not touch the molecules. His work 
might not be seen by an intelligent observer, if we sup- 
pose him to be located within the cover. He would per- 
ceive only the regular streaming in of the atoms, and 
might be an agnostic as to any arranging Intelligence 
outside his little box. He might, however, if he had a 
good mind, infer from the regularity of the molecules 
coming in through the hole in the cover that somehow, 
by some sifting agency, they had been assorted before he 
had knowledge of them. An intelligence within the 
box might say : " It is true I know in part, but what I 
know, I know ; and one thing I know is that by some 
agency or energy at work among the molecules they 
come regularly into my world." 

Direction, we are thus imagining with Maxwell, may 
be conceived to be given to matter, although it may not 
be measurable as a quantity from our side of things. In 
our own life there is certainly action and reaction 
between intelligence and the cells of the bodily organ- 
ism. And as matter of fact nature throughout its age- 
long process seems to have been very intelligently 
sifted.2 

1 Maxwell, Theory of Heat, ed. 1894, pp. 358 sq. His object was to 
illustrate a limitation in the second law of thermodynamics. 
- See Ward, opus cit. i. pp. 201 sq. 



CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 115 

Another aid to the scientific imagination in conceiving 
the mode in which intelligence may act as a directive 
principle without measurable expenditure of work, may 
be obtained if we carry out in a somewhat similar way a 
suggestion of the physiologist Verworn concerning the 
action of stimuli on organisms. He remarks : ''It is 
necessary to the occurrence of the phenomena in question 
(stimulation) that differences in stimulation exist in 
different parts of the body. If stimuli act equally upon 
all sides, all the effects of stimulation described in the 
preceding section occur, but a directive effect is neces- 
sarily absent. Only unsymmetrical stimulation can 
control the direction of motion." ^ Think a moment of 
that. Unsymmetrical stimulation, it appears, may con- 
trol the direction of motion. If then an intelligence 
like Maxwell's sorting demon, could contrive merely to 
alter the position of different stimuli, to sort out some 
stimuli and to gather others together, he would accord- 
ing to this physiologist exert a directive effect upon the 
development of life. If he could so select and utilize 
stimuli in the course of the world without being de- 
tected, he would act as an unseen providence in the 
guidance of life. An exterior Power can readily be 
conceived so to act without observation by us, at least, 
in its work. If known, it must become known through 
its effects. The unknown Factor in evolution, that 
is, will be revealed gradually, progressively, more and 
more evidently through the character of its stimula- 
tion in nature and history. 

1 Gen. Phys. s. 429. 



CHAPTER VI 

MORAL CHARACTER OF DIRECTION IN NATURE 

Assuming that evolution indicates intelligence, the 
further question at once arises, Is its direction also 
moral? From the character of intelligence a direct 
presumption arises that it must also be moral ; for 
reason and right within our experience of them seem to 
be vitally related. Given anywhere the rational, we 
may assume from human experience the existence like- 
wise in some degree of the moral. At least reason has 
natural moral ability enough to discern some distinction 
between right and wrong. But besides this general 
presumption that a rationally intelligible universe must 
possess also some moral character, do the facts of 
direction which may actually be observed, show indi- 
cation of any moral guidance also in nature ? 

This is the old question — older than the book of Job 
— of moral providence in the world. We are to look 
into it again in the new light, which falls upon all 
man's problems, from the nineteenth century's science. 

If there is benevolent character in evolution, it will 
naturally reveal itself in a steady enhancement of vital 
values. We should search for indications of it in life's 
increasing worth. Whatever increases vital values has 
benevolent character. But is there secured through 

116 



MORAL CHARACTER IN NATURE 117 

evolution any such gain in the worth of life ? Our pro- 
blem — the old, but ever new question of benevolence 
in nature — puts itself therefore scientifically after this 
manner : Judged by the tests of vital values, viz., 
capacity for life and increase of happiness, does evo- 
lution show good moral character? 

Now the one broad fact open to all eyes is that life 
in the age-long course of its development has gained 
capacity for higher exercise and richer happiness. 
Nature at first lives and stirs, it does not play or sing. 
Nature erelong begins to play and breaks forth into 
song. 

Mark this ascent of life on the scale of sensitive- 
ness, and the moral significance of this advance. We 
are very near the minimum of sensitiveness when 
we watch the organic responses of the Infusoria, The 
simple reflex motion of an animalcule to a stimulus repre- 
sents a degree of sensitiveness just above the zero- 
mark. For we may speak of a zero-mark of psychic 
life immediately below which there may be chemical 
reaction, and just above which organic sensitiveness 
may occur ; and, rising from that point, is the whole 
ascending series of the degrees and kinds of psychic life. 
Now if life reaching up towards its more intelligent 
manifestations had been stopped short just above this 
psychic zero-point; if the simple reflex motion of the 
free swimming Infusoria had marked its highest attain- 
ment in this respect; certainly it would have disclosed 
at that broken point little evidence so far as we can 
see of any vital worth in happiness. The infinitesimal 
life of a drop of water shows free motions, organic 



118 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

responses, and some effort at self-maintenance, but it 
has occurred to no observer of it to regard it as a 
joyous existence. Yet in this freer though infinitesimal 
world is opened the possibility of future joyousness, 
and some prophetic hint too of its coming. For let 
sensitiveness, once gained, increase ; let it become fully 
developed, and in time animal pleasure in existence 
shall be the issue of it. Follow the long process of the 
development of sensation through, and you shall see this 
first glimmer of pleasurable existence grow as a beam 
in the darkness. Life far away began to gain capacity 
for freer outward play and for finer internal harmony. 
It put forth its tentacles toward some happier air, 
and felt after the glow of the sunshine. In its earlier 
metazoan stages the gain may seem but slight in the 
power of pleasurable sensation. A colony of cells, 
bound in some mutuality of service, seems to be only 
a working colony toiling in their humble way together 
for existence, but with little or no sensation of life as 
sweet and good. Nevertheless, even there the kingdom 
of animal pleasure is near at hand, and it is to come. 
Elementary life is dull and silent ; but something would 
be lost, something began worth the finishing would 
disappear, should its effort at self-maintenance and 
up-building cease ; if life, after its first brief flickering, 
should sink back into the inorganic. A good beginning 
at least of something possible and well worth gaining, 
would be hopelessly lost, should this early metazoan life 
disappear wholly into the darkness from whence it 
came. Those cells, as arranged in that simple connection, 
do not yet spell happiness ; but they contain hint that 



MORAL CHARACTER IN NATURE 119 

something has been begun which may yet grow into joy- 
ous existence. The sensory satisfaction of a well fed 
worm or an oyster may not mean much ; but it is a new 
vital fact, and it means something. Growing sentiency, 
as evolution keeps on, claims attention. It becomes 
in time a predominant factor, and is a clear sign that 
something good is surely coming through it to revela- 
tion. The mystery of life, as it shall disclose itself, 
may prove one of goodness. An observer, conceived 
to be standing at some point far away, where life had 
just come to evident feeling of itself, might not have 
discerned sign enough of moral character in it to make 
him believe ; but he might have seen enough to cause 
him to cease to be an unbeliever, — to lead him to 
wonder and to wait for something better still to be 
revealed. 

Follow in imagination this process of development 
on and on, until life on the earth becomes aglow with 
sensation, and in ever-varied forms is capable of har- 
monious adaptations and the satisfied appetencies of 
the animal world as we now know it. Measure the 
vital value of it at its height, when at last it has broken 
forth into supernal joy and gladness in our human 
consciousness of life as something nobly to be won, 
and grandly worth the living. An immeasurable dis- 
tance has been traversed along this way marked by the 
sign of vital worth. A vast gain has been made in 
pleasurable capacity. The happiness possible to a man, 
as compared with the happiness possible to a monad, is 
high as the heavens above the earth. But the traversing 
this vast distance and the gain of tliis high power 



i<*^ 



120 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

constitute a revelation ; hereby is made manifest the 
moral character of the evolution. The end reached is 
a good end. Naturalism, therefore, as judged by the 
ages of accumulated contributions to sensitive capacity 
for happy life has worked well ; naturalism, when seen 
thus in the large, takes on moral character; the order 
on the whole is a worthy order. 

Thus far our argument has kept entirely on the sunny 
side of the way of life, and has passed the evil unnoticed 
by. But all through nature does not the dark side 
run parallel with the sunny side? With increase of 
sentiency and growing capacity for joy, do we not have 
given also increase of suffering and greater power of 
evil ? Is not the poet strictly scientific when he sings, 

*' Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure, 
Thrill the deepest notes of woe." 

It may not be denied that with enhanced capacity for 
pleasure there is opened greater liability to pain. We 
can suffer most through our friendships. Love holds 
within itself all the sorrows of the cross. Death has 
always shadowed life ; and the shadow of it is deepest 
over the brightest life. Man who can live most, finds 
it hardest to die. 

To such questioning of the moral intent of the world, 
as some good intention seems revealed through increas- 
ing sentiency, two answers are directly presented by the 
observed facts. 

The pleasure and the pain do not, as matter of fact, 
increase in equal proportion, but the sum of pleasurable 
feeling over painful sensation represents a gain of life 



MORAL CHARACTER IN NATURE 121 

on the whole. The living capacity increases faster than 
the dying pain. Comparing any later stage of the 
development of life with earlier stages of it^ the gain is 
always on the side of happy sentiency. The tree of 
life bears its fairest blossoms at the top. The singing 
birds build their nests among the upper branches. 
Wider vistas of joy open ever as life ascends. Looking 
at the matter with close scientific scrutiny, we perceive 
that increase of specialization in nature introduces an 
overplus of pleasurable sensation. The unorganized 
world is not the happiest world. Highly specialized 
life takes more pleasure in existence than can possibly 
enter and pervade a mere colony of cells. The pleasures 
which are rendered possible through the development 
of each special sense, vastly exceed the accompanying 
amount of possible painful sensation. Who of us would 
give up a good ear for music on account of the discords 
which at times one must hear, and forget ? The seeing 
eye, itself become sunny in the sunshine, beholds much 
more on the earth in which it may take delight than 
in which it may perceive suffering. Each new increase 
in the power of the senses reveals a world of finer 
harmonies and fairer visions. The light in which the 
finished eye sees life, is vaster than all the shadows. 
Though death reigns, the higher animal world is the 
happiest world while it lives. 

Very much to the purpose at this point are the facts 
to which Mr. Wallace has called attention in his com- 
ments on "The Ethical Aspect of the Struggle for 
Existence." He thinks that these supposed miseries 
of animals "have little real existence, but are the re- 



122 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

flection of the imagined sensations of cultivated men 
and women in similar circumstances ; and that the 
amount of actual suffering caused by the struggle for 
existence among animals is altogether insignificant." 
In evidence of this opinion he recalls the fact that 
" animals are entirely spared the pain we suffer in the 
anticipation of death — a pain far greater, in most cases, 
than the reality." He refers also to "their almost per- 
petual enjoyment of their lives ; " and to the further 
fact which consideration of the nature of their enjoy- 
ments indicates, that " animals, as a rule, enjoy all the 
happiness of which they are capable." He draws this 
conclusion concerning the ethical aspect of the struggle 
for existence : " What it really brings about, is, the 
maximum of life and of the enjoyment of life with the 
minimum of suffering and pain. Given the necessity 
of death and reproduction — and without these there 
could have been no progressive development of the 
organic world, — and it is difficult even to imagine a 
system by which a greater balance of happiness could 
have been secured." ^ 

In connection with these remarks of Mr. Wallace we 
may recall the reflections which have impressed other 
naturalists, that the larger part of the waste and de- 
struction of animal life according to nature's beneficent 
provision is pre-natal, occurring amid germs and seeds 
and embryonic forms before the rise or growth of in- 
dividual feeling; and also the fact that even the 
higher animals apparently have no conception of death. 
Knowledge of death, and the pain of it, is acquired 

1 Darwinism, pp. 36 sq. 



MORAL CHARACTER IN NATURE 123 

only by man, and by man also is acquired the spiritual 
power to overcome the fear of it. In other words, 
knowledge of the full mystery of evil is given only to 
that being to whom is given also power to rise above it. 
We who can see how dark the cloud is, have acquired 
power also to believe that the whole mystery of evil has 
its hour only in the infinite sunlight, and the shadow 
of it passes away. 

To the same purpose we may refer again to an inter- 
esting post-Darwinian study of the play of animals. The 
fact that animals, as well as children play, is familiar to 
all observers of the ways of animals. Any kitten is 
proof enough of it ; but how play ever came into the 
hungry, struggling, cruel animal world is another ques- 
tion which has puzzled our naturalists ; and the moral 
significance of the introduction of play as well as work 
into the animal kingdom, is something which seems 
generally to have been overlooked. An easy answer to 
the question why do animals play, would be, because 
of the superabundance of animal spirits. It was the 
poet Schiller who first gave this simple account of 
animal play. Herbert Spencer elaborated it among his 
universal formulas for the comprehension of all things. 
He supplemented the answer with the suggestion that 
while surplus energy is the first condition of animal 
play, the precise forms of play are determined by imita- 
tion. Imitation, combined with animal spirits, brings 
about this happy result of playfulness, which we regard 
as a sign of the moral value of life. The new-Darwin- 
ians, however, are not content with so naive an expla- 
nation of animal play; and one of them. Professor 



124 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Groos, sees in animal play sometliing more than a mere 
incidental phase, or happy accessory of the development 
of life. It all comes under natural selection, he would 
have us understand. Play has its necessary place and 
function even in the struggle of existence as " the 
young form of work." As Mr. Thomson puts it : 
" The play period is an apprenticeship, a preparation for 
adult life, with the great advantage that mistakes are not 
of serious moment. Throughout the ages those kittens 
and other young carnivores which hunted best in fun 
have hunted Lest in earnest ; the non-players and the 
bad players have been eliminated. Pla}^ is thus a re- 
hearsal without responsibilities, a sham fight before the 
battle of life begins, a preliminary canter before the 
real race. In short (as Groos says), while there is some 
truth in the assertion that animals play because they 
are young, it is perhaps as true that they have a period 
of youth in order that they may play, and the forms of 
play have been defined in relation to the realities of 
adult life." i 

This naturalistic account of the origin of play in the 
animal world illustrates the beneficent working of the 
severe laws of natural selection and the elimination of 
the unfit. It is another instance of the goodness in 
which nature's severity issues. Indeed the old riddle 
which Samson proposed to the Philistines might be 
used as a scientific statement of one of the moral 
enigmas of the creation; for it is strictly true that out 
of nature's strength comes forth her sweetness. As in 
the body of the lion were found the bees and the honey, 

1 Science of Life, p. 210. See Groos, The Play of Animals, p. 75. 



MORAL CHARACTER IN NATURE 125 

SO from what may seem at times to have been the fierce 
power and the cruel hunger of nature has come forth 
in time the hum of pleasurable existence and the sweet- 
ness of her life. As we owe to the severe mercies of 
natural selection much of the beauty of the flowers and 
the songfulness of the birds, so to the necessities of con- 
flict, to the hunger and peril and strife of the organic 
world, we are indebted for the playfulness of the higher 
animals. Play has entered in as a part of the very 
struggle of existence. It is not therefore something to 
be apologized for as though it were but an incident, or 
a recreation; play first found place in nature because 
of its utility; and as a part and happy issue of the 
struggle of life, its value is enhanced as life ascends, the 
period of it being prolonged in the higher and domesti- 
cated animals. With us the power to play becomes a spir- 
itual gift which may be inwardly exercised through all 
life's hungry years, and at last in the religious dreams 
of old age be still part of the soul's free preparation 
and expectancy for the life beyond. Indeed the origin 
and use of play in nature furnishes fine text from which 
discourse might be made concerning the higher mean- 
ing and value of play as nature's happy gift to our spir- 
itual life and freedom. As of the higher animals, so 
even more of men and women, it may be true, that those 
who play best may succeed and survive best. Cer- 
tainly so good a gift, which nature was so long pre- 
paring, as the power to play well, ought not to be 
cheapened in our fashions, or tainted with commercial- 
ism and vulgarized, as in the habit of betting. The 
animals do not play from any adventitious interest bor- 



126 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

rowed to give zest to their frolicsome motions. Only 
man vulgarizes play. Like everything else which is 
natural, play ought to be idealized ; it may have place 
and use in our best and most spiritual life. You 
remember that it was a stern prophet of old who added 
this fine touch to his description of the New Jerusalem, 
the city of Truth : " And the streets of the city shall be 
full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." ^ 

To continue in such practical discourse concerning 
our true use and idealization of play, might lead us 
somewhat aside from our immediate argument; we re- 
turn to that, and claim the coming at length of play into 
animal life as another sign that nature's vast process 
has happy character; and happy character, measuring 
it on the scale of vital values, is an indication of good 
purpose or intent, that is, of moral character in nature. 

As naturalists look into the lower organic world they 
cannot fail to be impressed at times with the apparent 
loneliness and joylessness of all that silent realm. 
There is only ceaseless motion and hunger there — an 
endless passing and ceaseless reproduction of forms, 
little sensation, no sound, nor voice, no up-leaping for 
very joy, no comradeship, no music, no play in all that 
early world of the Infusoria and the lower organic 
realm. But when into this drear and silent world play 
has come — play bright, social, pleasing, sparkling — it 
is like a new dawning of life. Here is another beam 
in the darkness which shall grow. Here is one of life's 
first hints of divinity. Play is one of the first proofs 
of a benevolent God in the animal kingdom. For life, 

1 Zech. viii. 5. 



MORAL CHARACTER IN NATURE 127 

beginning" with hunger and becoming playful, has 
thereby taken a long step forward towards happiness. 
The end of that way of life shall be satisfaction. The 
height, lost in the light above, is blessedness. 

Play therefore, let it be repeated and emphasized, 
when it came into a world of hunger and of death, came 
as one of life's first promises, and it marks, with all the 
spirit and fun and joyousness of it, a distinct gain, a 
moral gain, of evolution. This is not a sign to be over- 
looked and passed by, if one would judge truly the 
character of the world-process. 

Again, as the second answer to the doubt which the 
dark side of life often compels us to feel, we must bear 
constantly in mind that characteristic of direction which 
we have described as the law of limitation. In any 
conceivable world a directive Intelligence would work 
under limitations. Creation is itself limitation. A 
thought spoken, an idea wrought into marble, an 
argument put into a book, an imagination construed 
in a poem, — this is not only a creation by the free 
spirit, but it is also a limitation of it. All manifestation 
is self-limitation as well as self -revelation. This is as 
true of infinite as well as of finite mind. Divine ideas 
objectified in matter, expressed in suns and stars and 
living cells, bound together in one harmonious order of 
nature, fall under the same self-imposed law of creative 
limitations. The divine word cannot be recalled. What 
God does He does forever. It is enough if we may 
know that the sculptor's thought has wrought to noble 
use the marble in which it is formed, or the poet's 
genius has formed a happy harmony of words, or the 



128 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

divine ideas made all things work together for good. 
With lesser creations, indeed, such as a picture or a 
book we may say, That is as w^ell done as it could be 
done ; colors or words could be used no better. Our 
limited knowledge may not allow us to go so far as that 
and to say of nature, as some theologians have done, — 
It is the best possible world. Nor will it permit us to 
deny that it is. We do not know. We may reason 
philosophically that it must be. But scientifically it is 
enough if we can find reason to think that it is a good 
world ; that on the whole life works to good purpose ; 
that the ascent of nature is a distinct moral gain of 
happy sentiency. Under the limitations of nature, as 
we know its matter and its laws, life has advanced in 
vital worth and power of joy. That is its marked and 
predominant character. We cannot reasonably deny this 
revelation of its moral nature from any supposed pos- 
sibility of some better world made out of some fancied 
more tractable matter. There may be other and better 
worlds than ours, for aught we know ; and also this 
earth and our life here may have, unknown to us, some 
useful adaptations, some preparatory service to render 
to other spheres of being, very much as we know that 
the lower orders of nature minister to the higher, and 
prepare the way for their coming. But in the midst of 
the mystery of evil which waits to be revealed, Vs'q may 
be reasonably content to observe the indications of good 
intention in the constitution and course of the world 
as we find it, and to judge whether already, and within 
the limits of it which we may measure, nature has suc- 
ceeded not only in evoking life, but also in so guiding 



MORAL CHARACTER IN NATURE 129 

it and disciplining it that on the whole it lives to good 
purpose and grows capable of better and larger happi- 
ness.^ We may apply to the existing universe, so far as 
we have knowledge of it, the remark concerning the 
strawberry which Izaak Walton applied to his " quiet, 
innocent recreation ' of angling : " Doubtless God could 
have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." 
We do not know that a better world possibly could have 
been made ; but like the strawberry, which the angler 
picked by the bank of the brook, the world which God 
has made is good, and the goodness of life is sweet to 
our taste. 

It would lead beyond the limits of our immediate 
argument from nature to follow the signs of moral 
direction towards ends of higher vital value in the life 
of man and through the new Christian and spiritual 
evolution of human history. We may glance, however, 
along this line of human development long enough to 
observe that the same principle of beneficent vital 
increase obtains in man's history. We can grasp with 
firmer confidence a principle which is seen to hold good, 
up and down, through all the spheres and orders of the 
creation. Direction in the cell and direction in the 
world, providence in the least and providence in the 
greatest, confirm each the other, illustrate one another, 

1 Mr. Romanes regards the problem of tlie origin of evil as mitigated 
by the Darwinian doctrine ; and he adds this suggestion : " But even 
here we ought not to lose sight of the possibility that, if we could see 
deeper into the mystery of things, we might find some further justificatiou 
of the evil, as unsuspected as was that which, as it seems to me, Darwin 
has brought to light." Essays, pp. 56-57. 

9 



130 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

and disclose the same motive of benevolence in which 
the moral order of the cosmos has been constituted. 

If we appl}' to human history the same scale by means 
of which we have been measuring evolution in nature, 
viz., that of increase in vital values, unmistakable evi- 
dence of progress will be brought out; and we hold 
that such advance in the worth of life is clear sign of 
the moral character of history as a whole. There exists 
in the world at the beginning of this new century larger 
human capacity for li^dng, and more joy in life than 
existed a hundred years ago, or nineteen centuries ago 
in the dying Roman empire; or in the earlier ages 
when Abraham sought a better country, not knowing 
whither he went. In making this comparative estimate 
we do not overlook the pessimists, or, passing them 
by, as perhaps it is always best to do, we would not 
ignore the too familiar facts which show how hard 
and impoverished life must still be for large numbers 
of mankind. Nevertheless, this comparative estimate, 
measured by the scale of vital values, holds true of our 
human history, as it does of the whole nature-process 
before us. Without stopping to argue in full the posi- 
tion that history has been on the whole progressive in 
human capacity for living and in human joy of living, 
the advancement may be put before us by two single 
points of comparison. We refer for one to the power 
of the rich man to live largely and to enjoy life gen- 
erously at the dawn of this century, much more than 
was possible in the age, let us suppose, of Croesus. 
What good could Croesus have done with all his 
wealth? What opportunity for large, enjoyable use 



MORAL CHARACTER IN NATURE 131 

of it did the world, so far as it was then evolved, offer 
to Croesus ? Not much. Men did not know enough in 
his day to use wealth to the best advantage. A dollar 
had little worth in his time for benevolent purposes. It 
could not have been made to go far. It had compara- 
tively little value even for self-enjoyment. Croesus of 
old had to hoard his wealth ; he was not called on every 
day of the year by numerous solicitors from all over a 
great world, and he could hardly have helped being a 
miser. It was so with father Abraham in his day. His 
flocks multiplied, his herds increased ; but besides taking 
good care of his own, how little opportunity Abraham 
had for charity — what a narrow world was his even for 
self-enjoyment, or a rational use of his means in re- 
creation, art, music, and a thousand ways in which man 
now may himself be happy and make others happy. In 
short, the increasing worth of money for all noble uses 
is itself an unmistakable sign of progress. 

A similar comparative estimate in favor of progress 
may be made from the other side of human life. Grant 
that life for the man at the bottom is far from that which 
it should be, and which it may yet be made to be. Still 
the average man may live more now than ever before. 
It is not simply a question of comparative wages, or 
even of comparative possessions. A comfortable use of 
the world tends to increase for the great majority at 
least of mankind. But more than this, we can say 
that almost any child — alas ! we may not yet say every 
child — but the many children of men are born in these 
latter days into a world wherein life may become for 
most of us something larger in its outlook, richer in its 



132 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

sympathies, nobler in its aims, and more joyous at least 
in its struggle and its hope for humanity, than it was in 
bygone ages, or among the first savage colonies of men, 
or even within historic times. On an ancient Assyrian 
tablet there is a broken line with but one word of it left 
to be deciphered, — and that one word renders that old 
world near akin to ours ; — it is the word, Evil. All 
the generations of men have known that word. In some 
far, bright, future century — should there be unearthed 
a buried monument of the century just past as record of 
our world now — that historic word, evil, would still be 
found written among its lines ; but over it would be 
seen written in larger letters, as the most distinctive 
word of the present time, that other word, which hu- 
manity now begins to know as the greatest of all, — 
even Love. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 

There is one aspect of direction in nature at which 
we have not yet looked ; but we should miss a fine sign 
of reason in the world, if we should fail to see it. It is 
the presence and the higher significance of the beautiful 
in nature. 

It was one of the thoughts of the profound Pascal 
that an inch or two more or less on Cleopatra's nose 
would have altered the history of the world. Beauty 
certainly has been one of the historic forces ; but we 
shall not attempt to measure the influence for good or 
evil which beauty may exercise in the thoughts of men's 
hearts. Our present inquiry is determined by the scope 
of our argument from nature. From what power has 
natural beauty come, and to what end has it been born in 
the evolution of the world ? What energy has called it 
forth, in what modes has it been fashioned, and of what 
character in the direction of nature is its presence a sign ? 

The Darwinian science seems to have hit upon an 
easy explanation of the fair colors and variegated adorn- 
ments of many flowers and much animal life. We look 
first then, in our inquiry concerning the significance of 
the beautiful, to this account of its origin and use. It 
is the utilitarian theory of it. 

133 



134 THROUGH SCIEXCE TO FAITH 

The jDievalence of the beautiful in living nature is re- 
garded as due simply to the fact that its c-ultiTation 
has been found to pay. It is true that in many inter- 
esting instances among the flowers and the birds we 
may perceive some good use in their beauty. Some lines 
or colors which we reo^ard as beautiful, have been of vital 
advantage to the plant or the animal, and consequently 
they have been naturally selected and enhanced. It is not 
the least of the obligations which all students of nature 
owe to ^Ir. Darwin, that he opened up in this manner 
an almost unsuspected way of approach to the realm of 
the beautiful. He was the first to give a clear scientific 
account of a method of the manufacture of the garment 
of beautv which nature seems never wearv of weavinor. 
There are three natural factors which are supposed to 
be busy in its production. 

One of these causes of natural beauty is protective 
colorinof, includinor warTiing colors and mimicrv. We 
need hardly do more than mention this factor. Every 
woodsman knows the difficulty of distinguishing many 
kinds of o^ame from the orrasses and foliaore amid which 
they hide ; the common woodcock, for example, repro- 
duces the pale ashy colors of the fallen leaves so ** mingled 
with the dark browns and warm yellows of the fresher 
leaves " that the adornment of the woodcock answers 
finely the purposes of concealment. So also birds which 
inhabit the Egyptian deserts are so shaded down and 
mottled that thev are hardlv to be distinoruished from the 
sands and stones, where thev safelv fixid their hidinor- 
place even under the glare of the sun. Fine pencillings 
and shadings, and richl}- blended hues in the diversified 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 135 

plumage of the birds have resulted apparently from 
their protective value under the law of natural selection. 
The useful mimicry of color is carried to an exquisite 
perfection among the insects. There are beetles which 
are like drops of dew ; and butterflies which resemble 
tropical leaves so closely that no two of them correspond 
exactly in their tracings, any more than the leaves do, 
while some of them mimic even the marks upon the 
leaves produced by the ravages of insects or of vegetable 
moulds.^ 

Another factor in the production and diversification 
of natural beauty Mr. Darwin found in sexual selection. 
In this may be included the use of color and markings 
and distinctive bird-notes for purposes of recognition. 
The facts which have been adduced in evidence of this 
reason for the beautiful, belong to the romance of animal 
life. "All naturalists," Mr. Darwin remarked, "who 
have closely attended to the habits of birds, whether in 
a state of nature or under confinement, are unanimously 
of opinion that the males take delight in displaying their 
beauty." We are reading here a chapter in the natural 
history of courtship. For charmed by some splendid 
top-knot, or fluttering and fantastic motion, puffing out 
of feathers of neck and breast, or ornamented comb, 
graceful plumes, elegant ear-tufts, beautiful ruffs and 
collars, spots of gold, or brilliant contrasts of plumage, 

^ See Wallace, Darwinism, pp. 190 sq., for instances. lu the Natural 
History Museum at South Kensington, London, there is an interesting 
collection to illustrate protective coloration ; some insects resemble so 
neatly the leaves and twigs that one has to look sharply to distinguish 
them. One may notice for example the exact resemblance of Umbonia 
spiuosa to a rose thorn. 



136 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

the female bird, so our inquisitive science has found out, 
will make her choice of a mate, and by her happy 
choice tend to perpetuate in her nestlings the beauty 
which first won her little bird-heart. We are not un- 
willing to listen to a science which introduces us to 
courtships and loves of the birds so seemingly human 
in their methods, as well as in their crosses and diffi- 
culties ; — methods of bird-mating, at least, which involve 
parties on the lawn, dances and antics, and meetings at 
times in quiet secluded spots, during which all the arts 
of attraction are practised, and in the course of which 
some birds will become so absorbed that they will 
appear almost blind and deaf, and others will grow 
quite frantic, while rivalries not infrequently end in 
battles ; and likewise from such scenes, in too close 
correspondence, perhaps, to our human ways, some male 
birds will retire to some sequestered place in gloomy 
disappointment, and some females, unable to make a 
choice amid so many offered attractions, will fly away to 
dwell alone as spinsters in forlorn habitations. Perhaps 
from our knowledge of human fashions we may find the 
scepticism of Mr. Wallace more probable when he raises 
the question whether the individual tastes of hundreds 
of successive generations of female birds would not 
necessarily have tended, not to the definite patterns 
of beautiful colors and markings which nature has to 
show, but rather to confusion of colors, and the pro- 
duction of a speckled and piebald beauty.^ 

A third factor, on which with Darwin, Mr. Wallace 

1 Mr. Wallace rejects as unproved Darwin's supposition of Sexual 
Selection as a cause of color development. Darwinism, Ch. X. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 137 

and most naturalists lay much emphasis, is the use of 
color in the cross-fertilization of plants. This cannot 
be better put than in Mr. Darwin's own summary of his 
inductions. " Flowers," he says, '' rank amongst the 
most beautiful productions of nature ; but they have 
been rendered conspicuous in contrast with the green 
leaves, and in consequence at the same time beautiful, 
so that they may be easily observed by insects. I have 
come to this conclusion from finding it an invariable 
rule that when a flower is fertilized by the wind it never 
has a gayly colored corolla. Hence we may conclude 
that, if insects had not been developed on the face of the 
earth, our plants would not have been decked with 
beautiful flowers, but would have produced only such 
poor flowers as we see on our fir, oak, nut and ash trees, 
on grasses, spinach, docks, and nettles, which are all 
fertilized through the agency of the winds. "^ This is 
certainly the best apology for the existence of insects 
that could be imagined. 

Such in brief is the utilitarian theory of the origin 
and development of the beautiful in living nature. It 
is supported by a large number of observations, it fits 
into many curious adaptations, and its partial truth, at 
least, cannot be denied. This theory, however, has re- 
ceived since Darwin much criticism from closer investi- 
gations ; and the larger question has not yet in any of the 
writings of the evolutionists been argued out, whether 
it is a sufficient theory of the beautiful. Is it co-ex- 
tensive with, can it be so stretched as to comprehend 
all the phenomena of beauty in nature ? The problem 

1 Origin of Species, 



138 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

thus presented is more fundamental than the questions 
which are presented by mere criticism of the details in 
Mr. Darwin's account of the natural origin of the 
beautiful among the flowers and the birds. Granting 
that beauty is shown to be of some use in the struggle 
of existence, vegetable, animal, and human too, we 
would inquire further and more deeply, whether the 
utility of it affords a sufficient principle of beauty? 
Admitting, as far as the facts warrant, that nature has 
made good, economic use of beauty for the mainte- 
nance and victory of life, does this utility of it ac- 
count for all of nature's superabundant beauty ? Or 
must we tind some love of it for its own sweet sake 
near to nature's heart? What other account of it 
can you give? said a botanist, when asked a question 
about the violets ; but let us first see how far his 
knowledge of the use of beauty among the flowers 
may go. 

We may mention several particulars which show that 
even on the field where beauty is of apparent use, never- 
theless all of the beautiful cannot readily be explained 
by its utility. 

For one thing, it does not render sufficient account 
of those lines, markings, and hues, which in the struct- 
ure of many vegetal and animal forms have no apparent 
or imaginable relation to the uses of life. For instance, 
the fine proportions in the architecture of the shells 
of those minute forms of life, the Foraminifera^ or 
the sculpturings of the Vorticellidce, are not easily to be 
explained by any advantage possibly to be gained by 
such artistic beauty ; for in such life " there is hardly 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 139 

eye to see or sex to be attracted.^ This would seem 
especially to be true of forms of perfect loveliness 
which naturalists in their dredgings have brought to 
light from darkest depths of the ocean. We may see — 
our human eyes the first to behold them — bits of coral 
which for ages have been hidden nineteen hundred 
fathoms deep at the bottom of the sea, the patterns of 
which are woven as delicately as the finest lace.^ One of 
these specimens of coral, which was brought up from the 
depths on the voyage of the " Challenger," resembles 
(as a child to whom I pointed it out exclaimed) a rose 
window ; there was appearance as of a star at the centre 
of it, and fine tracery of radiating lines, and a circular 
pattern of shadings around its border ; — a cathedral 
window might have been drawn from the miniature 
carving of this bit of coral, upon which in its secret 
of beauty no light had ever shone. Of what conceiv- 
able use to it was its perfection of design ? Similarly 
among fossil forms ornamental lines have been carried 
out, as Professor Shaler from his studies of them de- 
clares, ''far beyond the limits of utility." He is so 
impressed with the " fashion motive " of their adorn- 
ment, that he compares it to " the work of the human 
fancy." ^ 

Various pigments and optical hues occur throughout 
the entire range of the lower organic realm. Bacteria 
show " often surprisingly brilliant colors." Algce con- 
tain varied pigments : the " reddish-pink fronds " of one 

^ Sandeman, Problems of Biology, pp. 131-132. 

2 Leptopenus Discus. 

3 The Individual, pp. 315-317. 



140 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

species of them we may often find " cast up on the 
seashore during the sum^mer months ; " the translucent 
hues of sea-anemones, jelly-fish and corals are well 
known ; not so familiar, but possessing attractive beauty 
to those who know them, are the colors of a large group 
of worms {Nemertea). One who has made a study of 
them writes, " The gradation of color in the various 
parts of a single specimen " is " so subtle that enthu- 
siasm as well as skill is necessary in the artist who sets 
himself to the task of faithful delineation." 

The color-scheme is thus seen to be part and essence 
of the order of nature ; beauty is one of nature's original 
and constitutive notes. Color is elementary, structural, 
physiological ; it is an essential element of life, before 
ever it becomes of use in the struggle for better life. 
In other words, color has vital value before it gains 
survival value. 

Autumnal coloration, likewise, has no direct relation 
to use ; it is not in itself advantageous to the trees. 
It may possibly be regarded as an incidental result of 
a vegetative process which is advantageous to the trees ; 
but it is an incident of beauty which nature sometimes 
lavishes upon the forests with a prodigal hand; and 
it is one of those extraordinary and superabundant 
incidents, at least, of the creation, which it is difficult 
to regard as the result solely of natural selection.^ 

It is rightly argued that if nothing has become beau- 
tiful in the living world except where its beauty has 

1 See Miss Newbigin's Colour in Nature, p. 66. The facts summarized 
above have been drawn partly from her pages ; many similar ones might 
be added. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 141 

been proved by the severe test of natural selection to 
be useful, then the beautiful will be found where it 
is of use, and nowhere else. But, as matter of fact, we 
find beauty existing without utility, and also we find less 
conspicuous and less variegated forms succeeding despite 
their lack of beauty. So the facts of nature seem to be 
larger than this theory. For example, many conspicuous 
flowers are not dependent upon the visits of insects for 
their cross-fertilization, so that in such cases they cannot 
have gained their bright colors as attractions for the 
insects. Thus the family of Asclepiadce^ it has been 
argued, present flowers conspicuous for their size, 
coloring, and grouping, yet they are self -fertilized ; their 
brilliant beauty, therefore, must be due to other causes 
than any possible use of it for fertilization through its 
attractiveness to insects. Upon this theory it is a use- 
less and purposeless ornamentation. Besides this, the 
ornamentation of many parts of plants seems to have 
no known or conceivable utility for the life of the plant, 
any more than the carving of a sword-handle has to 
the purposes for which a sword is made. In many 
blossoms there are subtle markings, delicate shades and 
hues, marginal lines, and spots of color, which are of no 
obvious help in guiding the insects to their honey, but 
which are the perfection of their beauty to our eyes. 
Conspicuousness rather than harmonized color, brilliancy 
rather than loveliness would seem to be best adapted to 
the uses of cross-fertilization. The parts of plants upon 
which insects do not alight, have not been left untouched 
by nature's artistic grace ; the under sides of many 
leaves show perfect finish; and the veins are woven 



142 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

into exquisite patterns, while even the stems are often 
sculptured and adorned with a beauty all their own ; — 
and what shall we say more of the richness of some of 
the foliage plants, or the grace of the wind-loving reeds 
and grasses, or the poetry of the rhythmic ferns, or the 
aspect of gentleness lent to the strength of the rocks by 
the softness of the mosses, and the fine etchings of the 
lichens ; — as though nature, hiding an artist's instinct 
ever in her heart, could touch nothing without adorning 
it, and over the primeval stones and granite strength 
of her architecture would throw suggestion of the 
coming bloom and fragrance even in her earliest vege- 
table moulds and fungi.^ 

An instance has been cited of seemingly disinterested 
beauty — beauty existing not for use, but for its own 
pure sake — in the common violet. A great variety of 
plants possess two kinds of flowers, the one conspicuous, 
and the other inconspicuous. The cleistogamous, in- 
conspicuous blossoms appear among the violets during 
the summer and autumn when all the more brilliant 
flowers are gone. " The one flower, the conspicuous 
one, which our children delight to gather in the spring- 
time, has everything in its favor — honey and a beauty 
of color and of smell that has passed into a pro- 
verb — and it opens its blue wings to the visits of the 
insect tribe in the season of their utmost jollity and 

1 Many curious instances of coloring which it is difficult to explain 
solely by the principle of natural selection are noticed by recent investi- 
gators ; e. g., see Kassowitz, AUgemeine Biologic, B. ii. ss. 64, 72, ff. 
Weidemann's Annalen Farbenphotographie, 48, 2 ; Centralblatt fur Phi/- 
siologie, 1895, s. 666. The effect of light in producing coloration needs 
to be more carefully studied. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 143 

life. The other has everything against it; it is in- 
conspicuous, scentless, ugly, and closed. And yet which 
succeeds the better ? which produces the more seed ? 
The cleistogamous, and not the brilliant flower; the 
victory is with ugliness, and not with beauty." ^ So it 
has been argued ; but a botanist replied. Though the 
fact be truly stated, it is not fairly argued. The 
victory in the fertilization of the violets and some other 
flowers is neither with beauty nor with ugliness, but 
rather with that kind of blossom which at any partic- 
ular time was best adapted to its environment. He 
would proceed to inform us that nature in this respect 
has shown great adaptability ; that she has two ways 
of maintaining her plant life according to circum- 
stances ; and that these ways alternate as the one or 
the other may be most useful in any place or time ; 
that some Alpine plants, for instance, which lower down, 
where insect life abounds, have conspicuous blossoms, 
and rely upon them for fertilization, will manage to 
survive in higher altitudes, where insect visitations are 
not suflicient, by adopting the alternate method of 
self-fertilization witliin their closed and ugly blossoms. 
Mr. Wallace has dwelt upon this power of some plants 
to change their habits according to their needs .^ 
Heeding whatever the botanist may observe concern- 

1 Mr. Justice Fry, Cont. Rev. vol. xxxvi, 1879, p. 581. 

2 The suggestion might also be veutured that the highly colored 
blossoms have some lingering utility as means of the occasional rejuve- 
nescence of the violets; as at times some of them are fertilized and fresli 
seeds produced. Mr. Wallace explains the heightened colors of many 
Alpine flowers as a consequence of their need of greater conspicuousness 
to attract the few wandering butterflies when the bees are less abundant. 
Nat. Sel. p. 403. 



144 THROUGH SCIEXCE TO FAITH 

ing the utilities of these chiferent kinds of flowers, we 
touch a deeper question, which such arguing does not 
reach; and possibly there may he here a hint also of 
simpler truth of beauty than we might suspect. For 
let us ask in reply again, why has nature been so 
prodigal as to adopt this double mode of fertilization, 
and even under conditions where the cheaper method 
of self-fertilization might suffice, does she develop the 
more costly method of cross-fertilization by insect visi- 
tations to blossoms upon which color has been so 
lavished ? Why does nature cling to this more expensive 
ornamental way, and not give it up until seemingly 
she has to throw aside her sweetly scented flowers, and 
return to her closed and common blossoms only where 
among the too crowded fields her violets cannot other- 
wise keep up their frail existence, or where her plants 
must survive among the severities of the Alpine frosts ? 
Why did nature ever care to strike at aU into this much 
more costlv wav of beautv ? Plant life could have been 
more cheaply maintained; — why the extravagant way? 
The puzzling complexity of this problem is admitted 
by Mr. Wallace ; but he argues that the two methods of 
self-fertilization (by means of plain, economical flowei*s), 
and of cross-fertilization (by means of conspicuous more 
extravagant blossoms), are both necessary under vars'ing 
conditions to the "vigor and fertility'' of plants.^ But 
even upon his own statement of facts, cross-fertilization, 
with its " highly complex modes,"' and " so much cost 
of structural modification," seems often to be a need- 
lessly extravagant method of nature. It is difficult for 

^ Darwinism, pp. 321 sq. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 145 

the most enterprising advocate of natural selection to 
show that the beauty lavished upon the flowers is every- 
where good economy. Nature seems to proceed like a 
happy spendthrift of beauty, as she scatters bright colors 
among the flowers of the fields. It would seem as if 
beauty nature must have and keep at almost any price, 
save the very life of the plant. It seems as if nature 
would cling to her beautiful children with all her heart. 
Poetry this, it will be said, but not science ; but let us 
look further and see. 

The inadequacy of Darwin's theory of the origin of 
beauty from its use — the partial truth only of it — appears 
further from some curious experiments which have lately 
been very scientifically made from the other side of the 
matter, which Mr. Darwin neglected, that is, from the in- 
sect side of the question. Insects have had their eyes ex- 
amined lately, and their power of appreciating the beau- 
tiful has been carefully tested. To some extent these 
experiments confirm the Darwinian view that conspicu- 
ous blossoms attract the visits of the insect youth, as 
Paley calls them. But, on the other hand, these ex- 
aminations of the insects' powers of vision show the 
inadequacy of this theory of the evolution of the beauty 
of the flowers. For they do not have eyes good enough 
to distinguish between, and so to cause the natural 
selection of, the finer hues and the perfect loveliness of 
the flowers. Mr. Wallace perceived that the evidence 
failed to show anything in the insect sense of color 
corresponding to our aesthetic sense of it, and that 
consequently there could be no choice of flowers by the 
insects simply for their beauty's sake. He says : '' All 

10 



146 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

that has been proved or that appears to be probable is, 
that thej are able to perceive differences of color, and 
to associate each color with the particular flowers or 
fruits which best satisfy their wants." ^ To this extent, 
as helping to produce distinctly marked flowers, or 
blossoms of easily recognizable colors, the selection of 
them by the insect tribes doubtless has contributed its 
part to the evolution of the beautiful. The insects 
are not wholly color blind ; but there is much in the love- 
liness of the simplest flower for which the butterfly has 
no eye. A French biologist, Professor Plateau, in recent 
contributions gives a large number of observations in 
confirmation of his statement that insects are not at- 
tracted by the sense of sight. '' Pollinating insects," 
in the instances which he observed, '' made their way 
at once to the flowers which contain the honey with- 
out being visibly guided by the showy organs " of the 
plants ; " wliile, if these are removed, it does not appear 
to make any material difference in the number of 
insects which visit the inflorescence." ^ This observer 
concludes that color is not the primary factor in attract- 
ing insects to flowers. " Although flowers are un- 
doubtedly seen by insects from a distance, either from 
their color or from some other contrast with their 
surroundings, when they once reach the flowers, it is 
perfectly indifferent to them what their color may be — 
blue, red, yellow, green, or white — if they differ from one 
another in no other respect." Indeed pungent odors 

1 Darwinism, p. 336. 

2 Mem. Soc. Z9o/., France, xi, 1898, pp. 339-375; xii. 1899, pp. 336- 
370, see Jour. Royal Mic. Soc, 1899, p. 298, 1900, p. 319. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 147 

may have more influence in leading to cross-fertilization 
and to sexual selection than do the colors of flowers 
and animals ; as a male moth is known to be drawn 
from an almost incredible distance to meet the moth of 
the female species.^ 

The Darwinian theory of the origin and growth of 
the beautiful simply because of its utihty, has failed to 
observe the good Baconian rule of attention to negative 
instances. It is true in part, but only in part. It does 
not understand all the loveliness of the flowers, or the 
splendors of plumage among the birds. Utility, in a 
word, accounts for some beauty, but not for the perfec- 
tion of beautv in nature. 

How, then, the botanist may ask in turn, can you 
account for the beautiful, if not on the principles of 
natural and sexual selection ? We may answer. Is there 
not here sign of some neglected or unknown factor of 
evolution ? 

The inadequacy of natural selection to account for 
the coloring of plants and animals, is perceived by many 
naturalists, who seek for other and deeper reasons for its 
origin and development, — its utilities being regarded 
as incidental and secondary adaptations rather than as 
primary sources or eflicient causes for its existence and 
growth. The latest researches require no modification 
of the discriminating remark which the eminent botanist. 
Professor Asa Gray, made in 1882 : " For all that yet 
appears, we may be indebted to bees for the beauty of 
our gardens and the sweetness of our fields, much as 
we are indebted to the postman for our letters. Corre- 

1 Shaler, opus cit., p. 127. 



148 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

spondence would flag and fail without him; but the 
instrument is not the author of the correspondence." ^ 
Color is recognized by many recent investigators as 
something more closely interwoven vdth evolution than 
the mere utilitarian theory of it had imagined. Color 
is a structural fact; there is a physiological line of 
beauty ; the whole color-scheme of nature needs to be 
studied anew in its primary significance as an orig- 
inal and constitutive factor in evolution. A potency 
and power of coloration is thought by some to be an in- 
herent property of protoplasm ; while its development 
throughout nature is due to these inherent properties 
and the stimuli of external conditions, such as heat 
and warmth. There is an order in the development of 
nature's color-scheme, independent of its use to life, — 
an order which is definite and predetermined in the 
constitution of matter.^ If we regard the universe with 
the Platonic philosophers as a divine idea, we should 
be true to our physiological knowledge of the develop- 
ment of fair colors, if we should say that the beautiful 
is inherent in the idea, and that its manifestation is 
revelation of the divine idea in one of its essential and 
eternal elements. 

The subordinate role of natural selection in the pro- 
duction of protective coloring is further indicated by 
the larger influence which recent students are inclined 
to attribute to the photographic sensitiveness of organic 
substances, by means of which, as upon a photographic 

1 Con. Rev. vol. xli. p. 606. 

2 See Simroth's view as given by Miss M. I. Newbigin, Colour in Nature ; 
his paper Ueher die einfachen Farhen ivi Thierreich was published in the 
Biol. Centralhl. xvi (1896), pp. 33-51. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL l49 

plate, an organism may reproduce on its surface the 
colors of its surroundings. Thus it is suggested that 
" a caterpillar may be like its environment, because its 
skin photographs that environment by means of the sen- 
sitive compounds of its own tissues." ^ 

Furthermore we urge if the utilitarian theory of 
beauty proves thus to be inadequate even on the single 
limited field in which the beautiful may be seen to min- 
ister to the useful, this theory of it breaks down utterly 
when we survey the whole extent and superabundance 
of the beautiful throughout nature. It has no possible 
application to a vast number of forms and arrangements 
on the earth and in the sky which give to us the im- 
pression of beauty. We must seek further for the 
explanation of this universal tendency to the beautiful 
in the natural world. We find beauty manifested in 
the structural lines, involved in the elemental group- 
ings, and abounding everywhere through all the orders 
of the creation. Nature, it would seem, even in her 

1 Miss Newbigin, opus cit. p, 312. See Wiener, Farbenphotographie 
durch Korperfarben, etc, Ann. Phys. u. Chem. Iv (1895), pp. 225-281. Also 
Eimer, Organic Evolution, pp. 142 sg. Eimer holds that a color-adapta- 
tion may be produced without any selection through nerve stimulation 
— stimulative coloring. An excellent summary of our present knowl- 
edge as well as ignorance of the causes and methods of coloration in 
nature, is to be found in Miss Newbigin's book on Colour in Nature, 
London, John Murray, 1898. It contains a trenchant criticism of the 
relation of facts to theories, concluding with these words, which are well 
worth quoting : " In spite of the fluency with which so many people talk 
of the meaning of color in organisms, the subject is as incomplete on 
the theoretical as on the physiological side. It seems reasonable to 
believe that the two deficiencies are related, and that a little more 
physiology will arm the theorists Avith better weapons. In the mean- 
time, we cannot end a book on Color more fitly than by an appeal for 
more facts." 



150 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

elements cannot help being beautiful. In her first 
motions she follows lines of beauty. Nature is con- 
stituted in beauty. Consider for example the symme- 
try and grace of her least visible molecular combinations. 
If you have Avatched in the microscopic field the pro- 
cesses of crystallization, you will have beheld even 
there a primal revelation of beauty. In the course 
of crystallization elemental designs unroll like a deftly 
woven tapestry. There is beauty in the formation of 
the mineral salts which certainly has no special and 
selected adaptations to their utility, either to the crys- 
tals themselves, or to their medicinal effects upon us. 
There is in the beginning formative beauty — beauty 
as of symmetrical and thoughtful design — in the ele- 
ments of the world. We may notice traces of this 
original artistic tendency of nature in the touch of the 
frost upon our window-pane, or in the exquisite forms 
of the snow-flakes that flutter down from the clouds. 
We may find evidence of an elemental and universal 
structural beauty in the lowest vegetable forms which 
may be sifted from the mud at the bottom of a pool, 
or gathered from the green slime on its surface. A 
diatom, that least thing in the kingdom of the plants, 
discloses under the microscope exquisite markings and 
shadings, which render it always a pleasant thing to 
behold. And the little thread of Spirogyra^ taken from 
the green slime floating on the surface of a dirty 
stream, has to reveal to us a line of spiral green, lovely 
as a necklace. No strings of pearls are more pleasing 
than some of the threads and beads of color in the 
grasses. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 151 

Nature is beautiful even in that which is least. And 
when we look up from this infinitesimal finish and perfec- 
tion of beauty to the larger aspects, the broader masses 
of coloration, and the more magnificent proportions of 
nature's architecture, the same irrepressible and uni- 
versal tendency towards the beautiful everywhere 
around us breaks forth into revelation. Day uttereth 
it unto day, and there is no voice nor language of nature 
where its speech — this divine word of beauty — is not 
heard. We see beauty ahke through the microscope, 
the spectroscope, the telescope ; we see it wherever we 
open our eyes to look. The etchings, as of a skilled 
graver's hand, upon microscopic shells answer to the 
sublime symmetries, as of the great architect's idea, in 
the glories of a constellation. The lines and colors 
of the spectrum, as they may be spread before us 
through the prism, are in harmony with the revela- 
tion which the heavens make to our uplifted eyes of 
their majestic order. Rounded hills, mountain peaks, 
lovely valleys, lights and shadows over the fields, 
splendors of evening clouds, and the beauty as of holi- 
ness in the dawn, — all declare the presence and the 
power of some indwelling principle of the beautiful in 
nature. 

Nor need the occasional presence of ugliness give occa- 
sion for mistrust of this universal existence of the beau- 
tiful. When Mr. Wallace ^ reasons that because many 
objects are destitute of beauty, some explanation of the 
ugly in nature must be given if beauty exists for its 
own sake, he overlooks a key to the occasional existence 

1 Natural Selection, p. 153. 



152 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

of ugliness in this fair world, which his own theory of 
utility might have supplied. For occasionally the less 
beautiful form may be the more useful. The abrupt 
turn of a root over the edge of a rock into the crevice 
where it seeks for a little earth, may be more quickly 
advantageous to the maple-tree, which grows up straight 
and fair from the mountain-brook course, than would 
have been a more graceful curve, such as its growth 
mio-ht have followed in more favorable soil. Uncouth 
forms, and homely colors, and even passing manifesta- 
tions of positive ugliness, as we look upon it. may have 
momentary part and place in evolution, and conse- 
quently have been naturally selected and kept so long 
as they were needed. But the tendency is always 
towards the beautiful. Moreover nature is never long 
tolerant of ugliness. It manifests everywhere a ten- 
dency to soften features which are repulsive, to brighten 
with a touch at least of color that which is dull or drear, 
and, when all else fails, to bury the ugly from sight. 
As if to show her inexhaustible splendors, even over 
commonplace landscape nature will pour a glorifying 
light; and from farm-house door, looking down the 
country road unmarked by any loveliness of its own, the 
eye may behold a sunset wliich transfigures all. It is as 
though nature would teach us every day, even in the 
midst of commonplace, that ugliness is contrary to her 
heart, and that beauty is her first love to which all her 
forces are forever faithful. Even her vehement moods 
and her destructive energies, as well as her sunbeams 
and her dews, must work for symmetry and grace, — the 
frost that silences the streams, brings to the winter's 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 153 

landscape a new beauty all its own; even craters of 
volcanic fires are not black and forbidding funnels of 
desolation ; the demons of destruction have left adorned 
with rich browns, and ochre, and yellows, and glimmer 
as of gold, the fissured walls of lava through which 
they hiss and flame. The destructive forces at which 
Professor Tyndall wondered in almost religious awe as 
he surveyed their ancient empire from the lone Alpine 
peak, have moulded and fashioned the Matterhorn into 
a shaft of beauty piercing the clouds ; and, — has not 
John Ruskin taught us how irrepressible beauty is in 
nature, as with the artist's unerring eye he observed 
that " the disintegration of the mountains under various 
forces has nevertheless taken place under laws of fair 
curvature." "A rose," he writes, "is rounded by its 
own soft ways of growth ; a reed is bowed into tender 
curvature by the pressure of the breeze. . . . But 
Nature gives us in these mountains a more clear de- 
monstration of her will. . . . ' Growth,' she seems to 
say, ' is not essential to my work, nor concealment, nor 
softness ; but curvature is : and if I must produce my 
forms by breaking them, the fracture itself shall be in 
curves. If, instead of dew and sunshine, the only 
instruments I am to use are the lightning and the frost, 
then their forked tongues and crystal wedges shall 
still work out my laws of tender line. Devastation in- 
stead of nurture may be the task of all my elements, 
and age after age may only prolong the unrenovated 
ruin; but the appointments of typical beauty which 
have been made over all creatures shall not therefore be 
abandoned; and the rocks shall be ruled, in their per- 



154 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

petual perishing, by the same ordinances that direct the 
bending of the reed and the blush of the rose.' " ^ 

What then is the full and sufficient interpretation of 
the beautiful in nature ? What does its natural evolu- 
tion signify? We answer: It is from reason and for 
reason. It is expression of reason to reason. It is reve- 
lation of the Intelligence that thinks it and loves it, to 
the mind in us which may perceive it and delight in it. 
This, and nothing less, is its message and its meaning. 
Our sciences may trace the laws of its unfolding ; our 
biology to a certain extent may find the method of its 
evolution. But beauty is a perpetual revelation of in- 
telligence to intelligence. The principle of beauty, 
wrought into the elements of nature, is one of the 
ruling ideas of the world. The tendency of nature 
everywhere to break forth and to blossom into beauty, 
is one of the leading characters of evolution which in- 
dicate its rational and moral direction. 

We have left, it may be said, one whole side of the 
great argument from the naturally beautiful thus far 
untouched — the physiological side of it. How, it may 
be asked, is our own sesthetic sense, our perception and 
delight in beauty, to be explained ? May not that have 
had its origin in mere utility ? May not our sense of 
the beautiful be itself an acquired adaptation of our- 
selves to our surroundings ? May not beauty in our 
apprehension of it be after all a quite simple physiolog- 
ical affair? So some writers would tell us; as one 
author, for instance, calmly assures us that our sense of 
the aesthetically beautiful is to be regarded as "that 

1 Modern Painters, iv, § 25. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 155 

which affords the maximum of stimulation with the 
minimum of fatigue or want in processes not directly 
connected with vital functions," — a perfectly natural 
explanation of our delight in the beautiful which you 
might remember the next time your spirit breaks forth 
into exultation when your physiological heart is panting 
as you climb at length the very last mountain peak, and 
gaze around. 

Physiology no doubt has its contribution to bring to 
the evolution of the sense of the beautiful. Let us accept 
its facts also, so far as in our physiological laboratories 
of psychology they may be determined. Our sesthetic 
sense has been evolved, and without breach of continuity, 
from the lowest organic perception of light and sound. 
We need not attempt to follow up this development. 
That has been as yet very tentatively and imperfectly 
done. But so far as it has been carried, it goes to show 
that the two sides of the evolution of the beautiful — its 
acquisition in nature and the power on the other hand 
of sentient intelligent life to perceive it — have run on 
together ; the one evolution matches the other. And 
the matching of them is further sign of intelligent 
direction. Both are met — the color and music of the 
world, and the seeing spirit and the loving heart — in 
nature's final revelation of the beautiful to man. It is 
one complete evolution, and hence its character as 
beautiful has deep spiritual significance. Physiology 
has to do with the method or mechanics by means of 
which the beautiful is perceived ; it has nothing to do 
with the reason in it or for it. 

We would like to know far more than the most 



156 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

skilled physiologist can yet show us concerning the 
great transformation of the outer world in our conscious- 
ness. It has always been the enigma of knowledge, 
how waves of sound or light may break upon the shores 
of our human consciousness into perceptions and delight 
in music and color. What magician with potent wand 
stands at the gateways of the senses to change the world 
of motions without into the realm of forms, fragrance, 
and all harmonious sounds within our consciousness ? 
Such is the ceaseless miracle of the transubstantiation of 
nature to our thought. It ceases to be a miracle only 
when we recognize it as the regular and orderly com- 
munication of mind to mind through nature. Natural 
beauty can be perceived by the mind within us because 
it comes from the Mind without us. Beauty is consti- 
tuted in mind and for mind. It is not simply that 
ethereal waves break upon the color purple of the eye ; 
there would never be human sense of the beautiful, 
should the rays of light stop in the eye ; it is in the see- 
ing mind that they are taken up, transmuted, organized 
into the perception and enjoyment of the beautiful. 
Beauty has no existence except for the soul that sees it. 
It belongs essentially to the unseen and the eternal, 
although it is manifested through the passing and the 
seen. We will not however enter further into the 
psychological side of the question, for the masters of 
philosophy — are they not still with us? And that 
naturalist who has done so much to elucidate and to 
confirm the Darwinian law of the utility of beauty in 
nature's economy of life, is among those who makes 
likewise this acknowledgment in his interpretation of 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 157 

it : " The emotions," he remarks, " excited by colors and 
by music alike seem to rise above the level of a world 
developed on purely utilitarian principles." ^ 

Let us sum up the course of thought we have been 
pursuing. The beautiful is a universal characteristic of 
the natural order. There is a tendency towards beauty 
in nature. Nature will be beautiful. Biology shows 
how to some extent use and beauty coincide. The 
beautiful frequently and in many ways is advantageous 
to life. Then it is naturally selected and enhanced. 
Natural science shows partially, at least, how nature 
may mix her colors ; evolution indicates how nature may 
have woven her variegated threads in the rich garment 
of life. But beauty is superabundant. It transcends 
the uses of life. It is elemental, structural, constitutive 
in nature. The great philosopher, Kant, said that our 
human sense of beauty is a disinterested sense ; we love 
beauty for its own sake. The same quality of disinter- 
estedness may be ascribed to the character of nature 
itself as beautiful. Loveliness exists above all its uses 
for its own sake. Beauty is an end in nature. It is as 
truly an end in nature as life may be said to be an end 
in evolution. 

Natural beauty we regard, therefore, as more than a 
physical feature, it is a moral aspect of nature. It is in 
our perception of it an intellectual relation. It is some- 
thing revealed not merely to the eye of sense ; it is per- 
ceived by mind. Canon Mozley, in his fine discourse on 
Nature^ has justly remarked that it is " essential to the 
very sense and meaning of natural beauty that it should 

1 Natural Section, p. 415. 



158 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

be seen ; " and '' It is visible to reason alone." It is 
another and everywhere manifest sign of reason to 
reason in the very structure of nature. It is a revelation 
in the earth and in the sky to be known when there is a 
human mind to see it. The beautiful is expression of 
divinity on the face of nature. Ko other interpretation 
of it is rational. Any lesser understanding of it is 
inadequate. The higher interpretation of natural beauty 
as having rational and spiritual significance, mistakes no 
lines of its evolution, and comprehends any scientific 
knowledge of its utilities, while it does not miss the 
simple, divine secret at the heart of all the beauty of the 
world. So through the gate called beautiful we may 
enter into the temple of God. 

The course of our reasoning would carry us one step 
farther. The discovery of a rational and spiritual prin- 
ciple of beauty, does not end merely in the realm of 
natural beauty. It binds together as upon another con- 
tinuous principle the natural and the moral universe. 
This principle of beauty, likewise, is one of those great 
principles of the creation which reach through all the 
spheres and which constitute the unity of the worlds. 
It reaches from lowliest form to the liighest angelic 
glory. There is one divine thought and love of beauty 
in the exquisite lines of a diatom, the symmetry of the 
crystal, the glory of the lil}', the hues of the humming- 
birds, the resplendence of the sky, the spiritual fairness 
of a human face, and in the perfect beauty of holiness 
of the saints in liofht. 

Of all beauty in the natural and the moral worlds, on 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL 159 

earth and in the heavens, we may say as our last word 
of interpretation of it, and our highest wisdom, as a 
little child said when gazing into the beauty of an even- 
ing sky, " Mother, I know what makes it so ; God gets 
beneath it and shines through it." 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 

The question of supreme interest to us concerns our 
personal life : what is the worth of our little individuality 
in the great nature-process ? Is our self-consciousness 
only a passing reflection of nature, — herself seen for 
a brief moment in her own glass ; — the mirror itself 
being perishable, and the image falling upon it appear- 
ing but for a moment, and vanishing as quickly as it 
appeared? Or is our personal hfe nature's dramatic 
climax, and in its worth has something been gained of 
immortal value? Has all the centuries' science any 
light to throw upon our personal interest in life ? 

This is the next topic in the order of our argument. 
Following the positive method of our discussion, we 
shall turn again first to the facts of the evolution of in- 
dividuality, and then seek to know better their mean- 
ing. 

In general it may be said that evolution through its 
age-long process has tended towards individuality. The 
direction of nature has been towards the coming and 
the reign of the individual. The whole movement has 
been that way. At the present summit of it, the in- 
dividual man stands out as its supreme form, and with 
his face uplifted towards some radiant beyond. This 

160 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 161 

direction of evolution towards individualism arrests 
attention as another indication of the character of it. 
How did the individual existence come to be dis- 
criminated from the universal flow of energy in nature ? 
What have been the successive steps in the separation 
of the individual from the mass ? What are the char- 
acteristics of individuality? And what is the higher 
sign given in the appearance of the supreme individual 
in nature — the sign of the coming of man, and of the 
Son of man? The old question of the prophet we may 
ask again from a new scientific point of view, Who 
shall declare his generation ? What does the generation 
of the perfect individual mean? 

In this part of our inquiry, as in the preceding 
chapters, we must search for our answer with pains- 
taking care among the facts observed, as we trace 
through evolution a process of individuation, and dis- 
criminate certain successive stages of it. 

One far away step towards individuality is to be 
discovered in the appearance, one after another, of the 
separate elements which are now distinguished in our 
physics. 

It used to be supposed that these elements were 
created in the beginning as distinct things ; but our 
physical science is now in close pursuit of some one 
original form of matter, from which the elements them- 
selves may have been derived. They are observed to 
arrange themselves in groups, and to have relations 
to each other which suggest some common origin. 
According to our present speculative physics, nature 

11 



162 THROUGH SCIEXCE TO FAITH 

in its distant beginnings was one, and not many. It 
was uniformity. Yet the one was the mother of the 
many. Stirring in that yast and void uniformity was 
some principle of diversification. There was an in- 
herent and primal tendency towards distinctions ; and 
distinct forms became fixed and permanent. The as- 
tronomer, Professor Lockyer, holds stoutly to his spec- 
ulative opinion that the development of the elements 
may be traced among the stars. In his latest book 
on Inorganic Evolution he says : *' It A^ill be seen, 
then, that the answer to the question, Do the stars 
show a progression of chemical forms, as the geological 
beds show a progression of organic forms ? is clear and 
precise. There is a progression." ^ Other astronomers 
might not share Professor Lockyer's confidence in this 
answer ; chemical astronomy has not translated as yet 
all the lines of the messao^e of lio;ht from the skies ; — 
but it is interestincr and instrtictive to know that 
evolution now seems to be extending its principles even 
into the realm of the inorganic, and is finding evidences 
of progress in the star-dust, and from the orderly de- 
velopment of the chemical elements of the worlds. 

In such separation and distinction of the original 
elements, occurred the first working of the principle of 
individualization. The appearance of one separate dis- 
tinct thinof, whether it were vortex-rino\ or atom of 
hydrogen, or whatever it was, marks an initial step in 
the far way towards indi^-iduahty. It was a step which, 
once taken, should never be retraced. More, vastly 
more, was to follow from it than could have been fore- 

^ Inoryanic Ecolution, p. IGO. 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 163 

seen except by the Omniscience which knows the end 
from the beginning. Yet finite intelligence, now look- 
ing back, can see what has come of it ; and, as we look 
back, all the age-long course of increasing individuation 
from the elemental start appears as one continuous way 
of the Spirit. 

A definite gain, in the process of individuation, was 
made when a crystal was formed. Nature in the laws of 
crystallization strikes clearly and confidently into the way 
of individualization. For in the crystal, form has been 
won, and clear integrity. Crystallization may be re- 
garded as an announcement in nature of the future com- 
ing of the kingdom of individuality. It prepares the 
way in the wilderness of matter for something greater 
than itself. The crystal indeed shall decrease, while the 
organic cell shall increase. But the first crystalline 
acquisition in nature of varied yet symmetrical structure, 
permanently fashioned, was a prophetic gain. It was a 
distinct advance towards something more excellent, when 
the first crystal in its perfect symmetry was formed. 
No advance of nature after the advent of the crystal 
need seem miraculous. 

It has been a fashion, especially with theological vital- 
ists, to contrast sharply the course of crystallization and 
the process of life, and in the supposed spiritual interest 
of proving some vital force to make the most of these 
contrasts. 

It is true that the formation of crystals of salt is 
not the same process as the growth of living cells. 
Differences between them remain, although a German 
biologist (Biitschli) has lately noted some lines in the 



164 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

formation of crystals of sulphur, which bear a suggestive 
resemblance to some lines in the division of a cell. It 
is true further that the laws of crystallization are not 
identical with the laws of reproduction of life. Laws 
are never identical in different processes in different 
realms of nature. But it also holds true that the con- 
trast between the crystal and the cell marks only the 
distance between two points on the same line of advance. 
The least in the kingdom of life is indeed greater than 
the greatest in the kingdom of crystallization ; but the 
one prepares the way for the other; the crystal is a 
natural prophet of the coming cell. It marks the end 
of the progress toward individuality in the inorganic 
world; and the new dispensation of life is already at 
hand. Nothing more individual, nothing having more 
distinctive character of its own than a diamond has, can 
be produced from the whole realm of the inorganic. 
Beyond any combination of molecules in a nebula, a 
star, a crystal, the process of individuation cannot be 
carried in a dead world. A new start must be made, 
and along some higher way, — nature must go beyond 
star-dust and diamonds, if it is to press on toward in- 
dividuality as a goal of its high calling. And, like all 
great advances in evolution, we shall learn that here 
also the new kingdom came without observation. 

The next approach, beyond the crystals, towards indi- 
viduality was made through the organization of matter 
in the cell. That " nursling of time," as it has been called, 
is so obscure in its origin that no science can tell when or 
where it had its birth, nor in what environment it was 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 165 

cradled. Life, so far as we may trace its descent, is 
like Melchizedek, without father or mother; and, 
although it is of this material world, by its high calling 
and mystery it seems invested likewise with sacredness 
as a priest of the most high God. 

We are not, however, at this point, concerned with 
the outlying question of the ultimate origin of life ; our 
attention is now called to the increase of individuation 
which has been gained in the organization of the cell. 
It is a unity, as a crystal is one clear thing. It has de- 
finite form and its own structure ; so has a diamond or 
a star. But it has gained other properties which mark 
a higher kind of individualization. It can maintain 
itself even in the midst of change. While the matter 
of it changes, it abides. It can also renew and perpetu- 
ate itself. It can reproduce its kind. And, to quote 
again Professor Shaler's apt phrase, it is educable 
matter. We may do well to specify and to state more 
fully some of these distinctive vital properties which 
seem to individualize living forms of matter. 

We enter into one of the most interesting fields of 
biological investigation, when we study the metabolism, 
as it is called, or the nutritive and destructive processes 
of living matter. These are exceedingly complex and in- 
volved. A minute bit of grass, or a protozoan, feeds itself, 
and so by means of other matter, which it takes in and 
gives out, maintains itself ; but when we ask, how ? we 
are introduced into a series of most intricate phenomena. 
Moreover, it is a striking fact that each different kind 
of cell has somehow acquired the power of selecting its 
own food, and of rejecting or leaving untouched matter 



166 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

which it does not want, or more strictly speaking cannot 
use for its maintenance of itself. Some epithelial cells, 
for example, select from the nutrient material around 
them droplets of fat; every tissue cell in our bodies 
selects from the common nutrient liquid, the blood, cer- 
tain substances only for its use.^ If we seek further 
to investigate the metabolism of life within the cell, we 
shall find that distinct, selective changes occur even in 
that narrow sphere of vital activities. Some substances 
when taken into the cell, meeting other substances 
already contained within it, undergo decomposition and 
recomposition ; some of these products are cast out as 
useless ; others remain in the protoplasm of the cell ; 
still others are passed on into the nucleus, and there 
undergo further transformations, from which again other 
substances result. We perceive what a complicated pro- 
cess this is — what wheels within wheels are here. 
Imagine your watch to be reduced to microscopic di- 
mensions, yet its springs, pivots, and wheels all retained 
and kept in perfect adjustment, — and you may gain 
thereby some idea of this wonderful cellular mechanism. 
But still further, and more difficult to conceive, this 
microscopic watch must be supposed not only to keep 
true time, but also to oil and repair itself, periodically 
to wind itself up, to keep itself going, and even more, 
for its self-maintenance to select whatever it needs for 
its own repair, and to cast out whatever in its perpetual 
motion has been used up. 

Chemical physiology has succeeded in following and 
describing to some extent the transformations of matter 

^ Verworn, opua cit. 527-528. 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 167 

in the processes of nutrition ; but the authorities differ 
widely in their guesses concerning the manner and 
means by which they are brought about. Concerning 
the fact that certain cells take up only certain sub- 
stances among all those available (e. g. the seeking 
of Spirogyra-ihvQQidi^ by the Vampyrella Spirogyrce^ or 
the selection of droplets of fat from the intestinal 
contents by the epithelium-cells) the neo-vitalist Bunge 
remarks : " No chemical explanation of these phenomena 
is conceivable." Yet Verworn maintains that it is 
mechanically as easy to conceive of such phenomena as 
it is to understand other chemical changes.^ Whether 
or not the investigators may ever succeed in bring- 
ing under known chemical relations these marvellous, 
subtle, and intricate processes of cell-nutrition and 
change, the point, which we are making, will remain 
unblunted ; it is sharply to be put as follows : this 
inner, self-selective, and self-maintaining life of the 
cell marks a new kind of individuality. In whatever 
way it has come about, its existence denotes a definite 
gain in nature's movement towards the individual.^ 

This conclusion is further emphasized by the phe- 
nomena of reproduction. The mother-cell divides 
itself, as in a previous chapter has been described, into 
two daughter-cells. Life thus reproduces itself, life 
multiplies itself by means of itself. Herein is a new 
and effectual fact of individuality on the earth. If the 

1 Opus cit. 528. 

2 Compare Herbert Spencer's reference to the kinship between his 
generalizations and Schelling's doctrine that " Life is the tendency to indi- 
vidualism." Principles of Biologt/, vol. i., p. 178. Appletou's ed. 1898. 



168 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

coming of the crystal was glorious, the advent of self- 
reproducing life in the cell is a more excellent glory. 
The protoeoccus and the protamodha are small and de- 
spised, lowest of vegetable beginnings and humblest of 
animal forms ; a drop of water is sphere enough for their 
existence ; but when these lowliest of the children of 
life first appeared, they were of greater value than the 
whole world which sheltered them, and of higher signif- 
icance than the suns whose rays may have called them 
forth ; for they were heralds of the world to come, and 
they prophesied a kingdom of life and individuality to 
which all the kingdoms of the earth shall be made 
subject. 

Through the realm of life the way of individualiza- 
tion, when once it has been gained, runs on with in- 
creasing distinctness. As a next step we observe the 
clear gain of animal intelligence. 

This great gain has been achieved in the animal 
world, this new distinction of individuality has been 
acquired ; viz., the sentient power of using something 
else for one's self. The lowest animal by its sentient 
motions renders the vegetable realm subordinate to itself. 
By that faculty the individual is seen to be coming. 
Not only in the animal kingdom does life maintain and 
reproduce itself blindly as it seems to do in the plant 
world; but this further power has been won by the 
animal of putting a whole order beneath it and making 
it serve itself. The animal Avith discriminating ten- 
tacles seizes and uses the vegetal for its own ends. It 
does this with sentient discrimination. 

The different members of a species of animals are 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 169 

not merely so many numbers in a succession, differing 
only in external shape, or slight measures of line, and 
shades of color, like the leaves on a bough, or the blos- 
soms of a fruit-tree. The numerals in the animal 
species are sentient entities ; each has some feeling of 
its own life. In its beginnings indeed, as we noticed 
in our introductory chapter, animal sentiency may seem 
scarce distinguishable from the sensitiveness of some 
j)lants. Irritability, or the power to receive and to 
react under stimulation, may be regarded as a primal 
property of all living matter. But in the animal order 
this general sensitiveness becomes specialized; this 
power is carried further, and made more of, and de- 
velops, as animal life ascends into that highly organ- 
ized kind of sensitiveness which we recognize as animal 
intelligence. So developed, and so marked, it becomes 
the distinctive property of the individual animal organ- 
ism. It is animal sentiency as distinguished from vege- 
tal sensitiveness. It is physiologically determined by 
the nervous system, with its localized centres of reaction 
from within to stimuli from without. The more devel- 
oped and pronounced these nervous centres are in any 
species, the more that species may be said to be individ- 
ualized. Each member of it has not only the charac- 
ter and habits of the species to maintain, but also its 
separate motions and life to exhibit. Moved by the 
stirring of its own life, and the feeling of its value, the 
bird of prey, or the beast of the field, seeks to maintain 
its existence in the hot struggle by pursuit or by flight ; 
it is not merely for the sake of the preservation of the 
species, but for the preservation of itself, that the active 



170 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

struggle of the higher animal is waged. Individuality, 
indeed, on this higher animal plane has not yet completely 
emerged from the hfe of the species ; for animal sen- 
tiency may still seem to resemble the sensitive motions 
of plants more nearly than it approaches the feehng of 
a life conscious of itself and its freedom. Nevertheless 
nature clearly gives to the higher animals more and 
more pronounced individual values. Life in the highly 
organized animal with its powers of self-impelled mo- 
tion, and also its newly acquired capacity for suffering, 
lends to the animal much more individual as distinct 
from specific value. The acquisition of the power to 
feel pain, be it noticed, is part of the natural cost of 
higher individuality. 

The next step in the process of individuation is 
marked by the acquisition of personahty. 

This gain is so immense, and, so far as we have his- 
torical knowledge, so abrupt, that it seems to many to 
have been an entirely new beginning rather than the 
climax of a whole process of evolution before it. Spirit 
in our consciousness of its free power is so unlike any 
other energy in our observation of it, that the two seem 
incommensurable. To compare the one with the other 
seems like an attempt to compare a quality with a 
quantity : we have no common term of measurement 
between matter and spirit. Henceforth, it is said, after 
the coming of man, the creation exists in two kinds, the 
material and the spiritual ; and the processes and laws 
of the one cannot be transferred to the other. But in 
the first chapter reference was made to the immense 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 171 

momentum of the scientific argument for the genetic 
unity of nature ; it sweeps us from our hold upon the 
idea of any absolute break in tlie one continuous nature- 
process.^ We can admit scientifically no real dualism 
in the evolution of the existing universe of persons and 
things. If personality is eventually found existing 
anywhere in nature, it must have come there in a natu- 
ral way. It must have its proper and appointed place 
and time in the natural order. It is not there as a 
foreign importation, but as a native and an heir, possess- 
ing some relation with, and issuing from, all that is 
and that has been before it. Even though spirit, as 
we know it within ourselves, in comparison with matter, 
appears to be something supernatural, it must have 
come naturally into its existing relation with the mate- 
rial world. It may be transcendent, it may be supernal ; 
but it is not supra-natural, it is not contrary to nature. 
Personality, rather, is to be regarded as a specialization 
of a spiritual element and energy which was in the 
beginning, and which has ever been pressing to revela- 
tion throughout the whole evolution. Personal centres 
of consciousness are so many points of specialization of 
the spiritual energy that pervades the universe. Per- 
sonality is the spiritual star shining clear at last from 
the spiritual nebula. 

We have before us two suppositions with regard to 
the origin of personality : one is the supposition of its 
supernatural descent ; the other is the supposition of 

1 This article of scientific belief is well stated in these words of Pro- 
fessor Brooks : "All living things are one by birth, and the system of 
living nature is, historically, a unit, a consistent whole, not a collection of 
isolated and independent species." Foundations of Zoologij, p. 123. 



172 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

its natural ascent. It may be said that upon this latter 
supposition the dualism is not really escaped, but only 
put farther back. If that were so, it would still be an ad- 
vantage not to come suddenly upon the dualism between 
mind and matter far down in the course of evolution. 
For if abruptly, and without warning, mind should break 
in upon an animal body, like a thief in the night, it 
would be an inexplicable appearance, which would put 
all our knowledge of nature to confusion. The sup- 
position that mind was thrust suddenly from above 
down into a material body, would break the course of 
nature in two in the middle of it. It would have 
nature begin looking one way, and suddenly face about, 
and end looking another way. It would render the 
whole progressive development of animal intelligence 
abortive ; and man would then appear as an after- 
thought to make good nature's miscarriage. Upon the 
supposition of his supernatural descent man comes not 
to fulfil all the law and the prophets of intelligence before 
him in the animal dispensation, but as a second creative 
attempt to put mind into a body after one whole course 
in that direction had proved a failure. We prefer to 
think of the coming of man as a still further success of 
the Creator in the one eternal purpose of intelligence. 

Moreover (as we shall take occasion to note more 
particularly in another connection), we shall escape a 
peril of much practical as well as philosophic and 
religious consequence, if we do not regard man in his 
origin as separate from nature : man does not stand 
apart, having his life in himself to lead — his own 
person a miracle over which he may congratulate him- 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 173 

self ; nor in his strange loneliness, as an alien here, 
need he feel himself unreconciled to nature — he himself 
set against the world, and the world his enemy. We 
may learn from the development of individuality, as 
we follow the long, ascending nature-process through 
which personality has been gained, that our human life 
is essentially a life bound to all before it, and to all the 
world around it ; that a self-consciousness, which is not 
at the same time a natural and a social consciousness, is 
an aborted and degenerate form of individuality ; that a 
man's life above all other creatures consists in com- 
munion, and not isolation, in a felt kinship with nature, 
a most friendly sense of belonging to the universe in 
which he dwells, and of oneness with the living God 
who is his home. 

At the beginning of the last century this world was 
religiously and philosophically regarded too much as a 
thing apart — as a rounded whole, indeed, complete in 
itself, but too much like a great ball, which had been 
rolled together in six days' time, and thrown from the 
hand of the Almighty out into empty space. The most 
man had to do with this earth-ball was to condescend to 
live a little while upon it. Man was looked upon as a 
being apart, walking in solitary and awful responsibility 
before his God, like a lone figure seen on a wintry 
horizon, wrapping his cloak about him, and standing 
out sharp and clear against the sky-line. The poetry, 
and the missionary humanitarianism, and the science, 
likewise, of the nineteenth century have left us with 
another view of nature and of man. Wordsworth, at 
tlie beginning of it, set the poet's heart free from ar- 



174 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tificialities, and sent our human life back to nature. 
And many strong and gracious influences have com- 
bined to arouse us to noble sense of our oneness with 
humanity. We know that only in the good of all can 
our little individual cups be filled with always over- 
flowing blessing. As part and essence of the same 
higher truth of the perfection of the individual life, not 
in isolation, but in fellowship, modern science is enabling 
us more richly to realize our oneness of origin, of en- 
deavor, and of destiny with the whole creation in its 
earnest expectation as it has waited for us, and still 
waits with us, for further revealing of the sons of God. 
The last century's science has left us with a new and 
invigorating sense of man's belonging to nature, and 
hence also with a deeper, richer, religious sense of his 
possible communion with the Spirit of the universe. 
Nature, as we now know it, is a growth — in some 
directions, maybe, it is still growing. We consider the 
lilies of the field, we consider the Pleiades in the sky, 
how they grow. And man too is one of the first-fruits 
of the creation. His personality is outgrowth of the 
ages. It is of measureless worth, because it has been so 
long in growing; all things hitherto have worked 
together for its coming. We imagine the first form- 
ing of the molecule from the ethereal something ; and 
that molecule takes on significance beyond itself as the 
elemental beginning of the life which now we may feel 
as ours. We behold the self-movements of the unicellu- 
lar organism in the microscopic field ; and even that early 
life becomes sacred as the far possibility of our own. 
We follow the development of intelligence, of pleasure 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 175 

and of pain, in the higher animal world, and revere it 
all as the gathering of the energies and the shaping of 
the forms, the opening of the eye, and the sublimation 
of the brain, which in the fulness of time shall render 
possible a "being breathing thoughtful breath," from 
whom we have our birthright. As we receive our 
personal share and part in the grand spiritual achieve- 
ment and joy of all these ages of the Spirit, humbly and 
with grateful reverence we would learn from their 
unbroken and sure development this supreme word of 
life's interpretation, '' My Father worketh hitherto and 
I work." 

What then does this poetic feeling from the last 
century's beginning, and this scientific faith of man's 
unity with nature at its close, require of our philosophy 
and our faith ? Not denial, nor abridgment ; not fear, 
but comprehension. This oneness of man with nature 
remains to be taken up into and assimilated with our 
philosophic conception of personality. Our definition 
of personality is deficient, if it does not include this 
truth of its humble origin and its glorious ascent. We 
shall miss indeed the truth, if we identify personality 
with anything beneath it ; and we shall also miss the 
truth, if we fail to take up the whole process of nature 
before it into the idea of personal life and its fulness. 
To identify the finished individual with the forms and 
processes by which he has been brought to perfection, 
would be a needless lapse into materialism ; as to identify 
God with his world would be a sheer descent into panthe- 
ism. But to gain any scientific or philosophic conception 
which may enable us better to perceive how all things 



176 THROUGH SCIEXCE TO FAITH 

consist in God, is not pantheism — it is religion. And 
to gain some scientific idea of th.e unity of nature, which 
may enable us better to perceive how the whole creation 
is summed up in a Person who is the first-born of every 
creature, that in all things he might have the pre-emi- 
nence, — that is not to lose, but to find our individuality 
in a richer possession of it, and in its highest revelation 
in the Son of man. It is possible that the scientific view 
of the natural history of personality may require some 
philosophic revision of our conception of personality.^ 
But such revision will be a gain rather than a loss ; we 
shall not see less clearly its present freedom and its 
spiritual distinctness, because we may learn to see more 
clearly the way through which it has been brought to its 
pre-eminence. It will be an enlargement and enrichment 
of the idea of personality, which shall comprehend both 
the separation of the individual life from the mother's 
womb, and also the fulfilment of the whole nature- 
process before it, when there is the joy of the birth of a 
man-child into the world. From origins most lowly, and 
by persistence in the straight way of life not to be 
stayed or turned aside, the distinctive and abiding worth 
of the free, self-conscious, moral being has been reached. 
The person most deeply conscious of spiritual distinction 
feels likewise most truly and joyously his real and abid- 
ing imity with all the beautiful world without, with the 
whole of humanity, and with the living One.^ 

1 Mr. ]\ [orris argues that mental activities may be prodacts of the 
evolutionary order while thev transcend it. A New Natural Theology, 
p. 207. 

- The Christian theologian may find help from scientific knowledge of the 
natural history of personality. A far broader natural basis may be gained 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 177 

To follow these suggestions further would lead us 
into philosophic fields, and in this argument we must 
not stray too far from the naturalist's path. Those who 
wish to pursue the matter in the more philosophical 
direction will find able guidance, though sometimes 
rather difficult to follow, in Mr. Ward's recent volumes 
on Naturalism and Agnosticism?- He has shown with 
critical mercilessness the contradictions and absurdities 
into which those thinkers fall who would put matter 
first, and spirit second, in evolution. The philosophic 
key to our understanding of the fact of the unity of the 
world is given in the faith which comes naturally to us 
in our self -consciousness, that the spiritual has priority in 
everything. Mind may have lately come to distinct reve- 
lation in human personality ; but something Intelligent 
and Spiritual is the Alpha and the Omega of evolution. 
If we begin all our science and all ourj philosophy with 
the simple assumption of the priority of the spiritual, if 
we assume the spirit to be first and discover its increas- 
ing revelation through evolution, we shall not indeed 

thereby for the doctrine of the Incarnation. It may be seen to be culmi- 
nation and fulfilment, not breach and reparation of natural law. The 
highest Christian revelation in the supernal Person of the Son of God's 
love may appear as the most natural thing in the world — the only natural 
end of it. Would not the Apostle Paul have gloried in tlie knowledge, 
which thus opens before us, of the " First-born of the creation " ? But a 
suggestion here must suffice. 

1 See also the notes of Mr. Romanes' unwritten book in Thoughts on 
Religion, pp. 127 sq. Becoming a theist, he perceived "the possible 
union of immanence with personality." He proposed " to go much fur- 
ther than any one has hitherto gone in proving the possibility of this 
union." The theologian may well heed this remark of that Darwinian 
naturalist : " For no one, even the most orthodox, has as yet learnt this 
lesson of religion to anything like fulness. God is still grudged His own 
universe, so to speak, etc." 

12 



178 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

escape difficulties, nor solve all mysteries ; but the diffi- 
culties which our thought must meet, will be seen to 
arise from the limits of our knowledge, and not to lie 
necessarily in the nature of things ; and the mystery 
which beyond all our science must remain, will be felt 
gladly by us as a mystery of the infinite light, and not 
feared as the horror of great darkness. The world as a 
spiritual evolution is at least rational, if it be not fully 
comprehensible ; the world as mechanical evolution is 
neither comprehensible, nor rational. If we begin with 
the spiritual, we know what we know, although we 
know in part ; if we begin with the mechanical, we do 
not know, and what we think we know, is meaningless. 
From the naturalist's point of view, without entering 
too far into the metaphysical, the matter may be put 
summarily in this way: Taking our start from the 
assumed priority of the Spirit, and trusting to a principle 
of intelligent direction throughout nature, we can at 
least follow one way, keep to the same ascending path, 
and never need lose the clue in following nature on and 
on. All the facts which are becoming known concern- 
ing sentiency and intelligence in the plant and animal 
world ; all the observations which are being gathered to 
show the action of intelligence among animals, fall into 
place, and shall serve to mark out the continuous spirit- 
ual course and character of evolution. And the com- 
ing of the final distinct and permanent person is not 
a miracle, but an advent. Personality crowns the whole 
natural process of individuation ; it is the supernal fact 
towards which the evolution has always been directed. 
The naturalist may say. If I cannot define personality. 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 179 

I may accept it. I cannot define life, but I will possess 
it, and make the most of it. I will dispute no reality 
which I may know, although my science can know it 
but in part. 

It lies next in the course of our thought to search 
more thoroughly for the meaning of the advent of 
personality in nature. How are we to interpret the 
significance of this supreme fact of human personality, 
which we have seen to be the summit and glory of 
nature's long process of individuation? Man's self- 
conscious life, as we have been insisting, does not 
lose its spiritual supremacy when it is seen to be the 
issue of all the energies that have been working to- 
gether for good throughout the whole nature-process 
before his coming. The worth of our human personal- 
ity receives higher valuation when we estimate it by 
the cost of the ages. Personality becomes more sig- 
nificant when we discover that with the inevitableness 
of natural law its high calling and spiritual election 
have been made sure from the foundation of the 
world. By this conclusion we are prepared to find 
further meanings in the coming of personal life as an 
event in evolution. As other, lesser events before it 
have indicated, only more conspicuously, it shows that 
the spiritual energy in evolution has power to keep on 
from one order to a higher order. Nature does not 
break with itself while it rises above itself. Time and 
time again the crisis has come when nature must go 
forward to something better, or else fall back beneath 
itself. And the crisis never yet has proved to be too 



180 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

much for the inner spiritual energy of the universe. 
This would not be so, were nature only so much 
mechanics. For a mere machine cannot meet a crisis 
and rise above it. But nature does. A machine can 
never transcend itself. But nature passes the critical 
point, and goes on. The Spirit which is in nature 
gathers itself up, as it were, and presses on towards 
the goal. 

It is true that at the end of one order evolution seems 
at times to take a great step forwards ; but the leap is 
never made aimlessly in the dark. Nor is the new 
order too distant to be reached from the old. But there 
is an advance, and the new is better than the old. 
The early step from the physical order to the proto- 
plasmic order — that step which was first taken we 
know not when or where — was not too long for the 
spiritual energy of nature to traverse ; nor was the 
rise from the highest animal intelligence to the lowest 
human intelligence — great as that distance may seem 
to be — too difficult for the same Spirit to compass it. 
The living God, we may believe, has nowhere broken 
with his own thought. He has fulfilled himself in evo- 
lution. Personality is significant as fulfilment of the 
Divine in nature. 

We may discern in several particulars this meaning 
of the arrival of personality as an event in evolution. 
Two noteworthy signs in man's coming are to be 
pointed out. One is given in this fact: when man is 
reached, there appears to be an arrest of evolution in 
one direction, followed by an opening for life in a new 
direction. The body stops ; the mind goes on. Physi- 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL l8l 

ological development is stayed; a new way of mental 
development is opened. In the human body the long- 
continued process of sharpening the senses and of refin- 
ing the instincts is brought to an end. Animal sentiency 
becomes secondary and tributary to self-consciousness. 
Life consciously determined takes the place largely of 
instinctive action. We may observe in ourselves the 
evidence both of the conservation, and also the sub- 
ordination of animal sentiency. For, on the one hand, 
sensitiveness is kept at its height in our nervous organ- 
ization. The human brain as a central organ, together 
with the nervous system connected with it, is the fin- 
ished mechanism of sensation, — the finest, the most 
subtle and most spiritually responsive which nature has 
been able to produce on the plane of animal sentiency. 
Taken as a whole it is the perfection of sensation. In 
particular senses some lower animals, it is true, may 
surpass man's sentient power : the eagle in its airy 
circling has sharper keenness of eye ; the deer on the 
alert in the forest possesses more subtle scent, and will 
escape us ; even the insects among the flowers have 
optic ganglia so curiously connected with the facets of 
their compound eyes that quite possibly they may see 
some things which our eyes cannot perceive.^ When, 
however, we consider sentiency as a whole, and in its 
varied adaptation to environment, we may conclude 
that in the human body sentiency has apparently reached 
an ultimate degree of physiological perfectness. In some 
ways still it may be enhanced, but in form it is finished. 
There is indeed no sign of any further development 

1 Wallace, Natural Selection, p. 92. 



182 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

of mere body beyond our present embodiment. Nature 
gives no promise of any higher and finer arrangement of 
molecules for sentient life than is now found in the 
intricate structure of the brain of man. The extent 
to which organization of atomic matter for the use of 
intelligence has been brought in the convolutions of 
the brain, is a wonder passing knowledge. It would 
seem that matter more ethereal must be used, if em- 
bodiment for the use of the spirit is to be carried any 
higher. There is no hint anywhere of the future com- 
ing of any body of the earth earthy, which shall be consti- 
tuted from atomic matter of cells endowed with subtler 
elements, woven into more delicate nerve patterns, and 
serving as an organ still more marvellously subjected 
to the processes of the intellectual life. So far as our 
observation extends, nature has reached her ultimate of 
molecular organization for spiritual uses in the human 
body. 

This conclusion is rendered more evident by the fur- 
ther fact that in some particulars sensation has already 
dropped back and become less refined in man's body 
than in some animals. For such arrest and even 
slight retrogression in the senses of man, indicate that 
an acme of sensation has been attained in his nervous 
system, and that no step further is to be taken in this 
direction. Another step, even a short one, might 
require not the further development of this body, but 
the advent of a new type of embodiment. 

The arrest of physiological development and need of 
some new order of body for mind, if evolution is to con- 
tinue beyond man's present estate, will appear clearly 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 183 

when we compare the part played by instinct in the 
higher animals with the use of instinct to man. The 
effort of the individual to maintain its own life culmi- 
nates in animal instinct. Instinct has become keenly 
sharpened as a weapon for protection in the animal 
world. But in man, while instinct remains as an animal 
achievement, it plays, almost from infancy, a subordinate 
role. It is not our chief dependence for self-preserva- 
tion. Man in some respects has dulled the fine edge of 
instinct to which nature has brought animal sentiency. 
But the loss is for a gain. The loss of animal instinct 
is less in the lower, savage races than in the more 
intelligent types of humanity. The gain in the latter 
is the result of the overshadowing of a lower kind of 
self-existence by a higher kind : instinct decreases only 
as reason increases. It falls into disuse because some- 
thing else has come in for better use. 

These facts suggest the further prophetic meaning of 
the advent of personal life. Through personality and 
its possible development a new way of evolution has 
been opened. The arrest of the body is an announce- 
ment of the birth of the soul ; — and that is to grow after 
its kind. 

Another fact of large interpretative significance de- 
serves in this connection far more attention than it has 
as yet received. It is a note of evolution of great 
moment that in the coming of man a point is reached 
where the individual begins to exist for his own sake, 
and no longer chiefly for the sake of the species. This 
is a critical point, — to pass it, is a gain immeasurable. 
At last the value of the species culminates in the worth 



184 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

of the individual. Man, the species, exists for man the 
individual person. 

The course of individuation, which we have sketched, 
results at length in a change of values. At first, and 
for a long time, the individual life was possessed of 
value because it was adapted to the task of preserving 
the species. At any cost to the swarming myriads of 
organisms the species must be maintained and perfected, 
and the way prepared for still better species. Now 
there is no other or higher species than the human race 
to come, and the individual man asserts the worth of 
his life to himself. It will prove profitable for us to 
examine this truth more closely. 

Among the lowest organisms the struggle of life is 
visibly for the success of the species. The germ-plasm 
survives. It is life in general, not the individual, which 
is deathless. Nature's first interest seems to be solely 
to fashion and to maintain the species, and it sacrifices 
myriads of individuals that the species may be preserved. 
Multitudes of individual organisms perish almost as 
quickly as they spring up. Many exist just long enough 
to reproduce themselves. The Mayflies, for instance, live 
for a brief nuptial flight in the sunshine, and die in the 
very effort of maintaining their kind. Alternate gen- 
erations occur, the species being thus kept alive through 
different forms which perish. The life-circle remains 
unbroken, while the organisms which complete it pass 
away. Some adults, like the Yucca moth, will make 
curious provision for the future preservation of off- 
spring which shall exist in a form and manner totally 
unlike the parent organism, and of which the parental 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 185 

moth can have had no experience. It never sees its 
own offspring, and would not recognize them if it did. 
So the parents toil and spin and perish for the benefit of 
a posterity they know not of. So the species, not the 
individual life, is nature's first care — the object through 
age-long cycles of her unwearying pursuit. One of the 
most general impressions of observers of the life which 
flits through the air, blooms in the meadows, and teems 
in the waters, is this, that the individual counts for 
nothing, and that thought for the species is all that 
nature has at heart. What our older theologian, Jon- 
athan Edwards, regarded as the essence of virtue seems 
thus in a sense to be nature's earliest characteristic, 
viz., "the love of being in general." Nature at first 
seems not to be mindful of being in the particular. 

From this observation of the universal primacy which 
nature seems to give to the species, and her recklessness 
of the individual, we are apt to carry over to the esti- 
mate of our own existence the thought that with us like- 
wise the same law holds, and the same strenuous process 
must be continued, so that the individual man can be 
possessed of no distinctive value in himself, but must 
live and die, as have all forms of life before him, simply 
that his race may be preserved, and humanity survive, 
while the individual perishes forever. But is this in- 
ference from the world below us, as to the value of our 
life, correct? Because the individual counts seemingly 
for nothing below the plane of personal life, is it true 
on our plane that the species is the main thing, and the 
individual the least concern of nature ? At this point 
a principle which we have already expounded comes 



186 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

again to guide our reasoning, — we refer to the law of 
vital values. Each successive stage of life has its own 
vital value. One feature may be of more value to life 
on one stage of evolution; another character may be 
the thing of worth on a higher plane. The question at 
every point of the way is, what at that point is the thing 
of most value? It is possible, therefore, that as the 
evolution proceeds, something which heretofore had not 
played an important part, or been of prime value to life, 
may rise to the place of supreme worth, and become the 
one law to which nature will keep with all her strength. 
It would not be surprising, therefore, if, when the higher 
plane of personality is reached, the individual should 
acquire a value never before known in nature. It would 
not be a breach of continuity, if it should appear that the 
law, which before had held good, of the existence of the 
individual for the sake of the species, should meet with 
some modification, or become subordinate to some higher 
valuation with the advent of man. If so, it would be 
probable also that the new valuation put at this stage of 
evolution on the individual, would be seen to be the cul- 
mination of a worth which had been growing, unsus- 
pected and unperceived, perhaps, through the whole 
previous course of nature. It would be revelation of a 
thought of worth which all the while had been hidden 
in nature's heart. Is it so? Are there any facts which 
indicate that beneath nature's manifest care for the spe- 
cies she has had from the beginning a deeper passion, 
and that all the while, although she has not told it, the 
individual and his noble worth has been the secret of 
all her thoughts ? 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 187 

For the answer we look again, and with more eager 
searching, into the facts of life. We may notice multi- 
plying signs, as life ascends, of the relative increase of 
value given to the individual in comparison with the 
preservation of the species. Such signs are these. 
There is an increasing limitation of the number of the 
individuals which are necessary to maintain the species. 
More play in the preservation of the species is given to 
the individual life. More use of individuality is made 
for the species. Compare, for example, the immense 
number of the eggs of fishes or of insects, which are 
required for the preservation of the species, with the 
smaller number of eggs of the birds and the higher 
mammals. Weismann has noticed the fact that the 
golden eagle lays but one or two eggs, while at the same 
time nature has made careful provision for the protec- 
tion of one or two eaglets only, and trusts to this pro- 
vision for the preservation of the family of golden eagles ; 
that is, nature begins to trust to numbers far less, and to 
individuality far more. Her method of maintaining the 
species has thus been quietly changed from that of 
prodigality of birth to careful nurture of a few offspring. 
Limitation, instead of prodigality, is the new sign of 
nature's advancing individuation. The species is con- 
tinued, no longer through the swarming of the many, but 
by the election of the few. The way of natural provi- 
dence ceases to resemble the thoughtlessness of the 
spendthrift, and becomes the method of the caretaker. 
Nature takes no longer the chance that a few of the 
multitudinous seed may escape destruction, but she 
trusts to the power of the carefully selected few to main- 



188 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tain themselves in tlie struggle of existence. Nature, 
in short, prizes the individual more highly, and uses him 
more and more in evolution. And this change also is a 
prophetic sign. 

Added to this fact is the further circumstance that in 
the higher animals the life of the individual is prolonged 
after it has ceased to be of value simply for the sake 
of reproducing its like. The natural limitation of life 
among the lower creatures seems to be determined directly 
by reference to its reproductive function. When that 
has been fulfilled the individual dies. Nature has no fur- 
ther use for it, and it perishes. But this relation between 
the duration of life and its reproductive power changes 
in the higher forms ; new factors enter in; maternity ceases 
to be fatal. Motherhood takes on happier worth ; it may 
continue long as the blessing of a human home. 

In this connection due estimate should be made of that 
remarkable aspect of evolution which it is Mr. John 
Fiske's distinction to have pointed out and emphasized ; 
viz., the prolongation of the period of infancy among the 
higher animals, and its especial significance and beauty 
in our human homes. By all these signs nature shows 
her increasing valuation of the individual. For him and 
for his happiness she has toiled and spun. For him and 
his personal life she has sacrificed all. For the mother 
and the child, for the man and woman living for long 
years of love and joy, all her ages have been given, all her 
work has been done. The individual in his perfectness 
is the end of all nature's ways. For him has been the love 
kept secret in nature's heart from the beginning of days. 

We may sum up biologically this matter as follows. 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 189 

Its importance justifies some repetition. We grant the 
apparent truth that the individual at first sight seems to 
have been made for the species ; that adaptations of the 
individual organism have been naturally selected in re- 
lation to their species-maintaining value; that the 
individual perishes in order that the species may be 
preserved, and that the individual may even be helped 
to perish by the very adaptations which serve for the 
better preservation of the species. But, on the other 
hand, there are certain aspects of evolution, less notice- 
able at the first, yet more and more revealed as life 
advances, which show the coming value of the individ- 
ual. The individual seems steadily to gain in import- 
ance in comparison with the species. Suppose that at 
length in this increasing worth of the individual a point 
of equilibrium is reached where nature's two interests 
in life become evenly balanced, and the individual 
equally with the species has vital value. What then? 
The process certainly could not stop there ; nature never 
rests at any point of equilibrium; nature is certainly 
not a machine which can be stalled on a dead centre. 
Should these two interests, that of the species and that 
of the individual, become equally balanced, then two 
courses are left open : either one or the other must be- 
come predominant and determinative in the process of 
natural selection; either nature must return to a re- 
assertion of the original necessity that species is the one 
thing to be preserved, or else press on to the higher 
assertion of the supreme worth of the individual. In 
the latter case, the natural logic of the movement onward 
to the highest vital value may require eventually the 



190 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

subordination even of the reproduction of the race to 
the immortality of the individual persons. If this be so, 
we might expect further to discover some tendency in evo- 
lution to render the powers which regenerate the species 
subordinate to the powers which regenerate the man. 

As another consequence there would be involved 
naturally the limitation of the numbers of the individ- 
uals who in their succession constitute a race, and the 
survival or immortality of the individuals who had 
attained life in the highest : after the race might have 
ceased to be maintained by its propagation through suc- 
cessive generations, it would survive through the con- 
tinuance in existence of the individuals which it had 
produced. And in proportion as we may find reason 
to suppose that this is the actual culmination in the life 
of man, and its abiding worth, we may draw from these 
considerations a natural presumption for the continu- 
ance of man's personal life in some further adaptations 
to the conditions of his existence beyond our knowledge. 
To this trend of the argument we shall return later on. 

We remark in passing that at least in view of these 
facts and half -disclosed tendencies of evolution, we can 
no longer draAV, as has so often been done, an argument 
ao-ainst the future continuance of the individual life 
from nature's seemingly relentless care only for the 
species. For the survival-value of the individual be- 
comes in time the chief value. To the life of the indi- 
vidual natural selection itself is put finally under bonds. 
The final question therefore, which is raised by this 
whole process of individuation up to its natural climax 
in man's self-conscious personality, may be put after this 



THE COMING OF THE INDIVIDUAL 191 

manner: Has not at last in man's life a point of equi- 
librium between the vital value of the species and the 
worth of the individual life been reached and passed? 
Has not life the most at stake now in the continuance 
of personality ? Has the individual life gained at last a 
supreme spiritual worth ? Is it so at last, that to proceed 
further, to complete all before, and to go on, this one 
thing evolution must do, — press toward the goal of the 
immortal individual life? The one thing that remains, 

— all beneath having been accomplished, — is it not for 
the living person to gain perfect adaptation to eternal 
life? Henceforth in the new order, which shall be 
fulfilment of all, shall man the species cease to be mul- 
tiplied on the earth, and man the spiritual individual 
live immortal ? Does the evolution as a whole, we are 
questioning, point that way? We are assured in the 
Christian revelation that the children of the resurrection 
shall neither marry nor be given in marriage, but they 
shall be as the angels of God. That is, in the 
resurrection-life man the species has died; man the 
individual lives on. Sex, through which life became 
rich and fair, shall no more be needed for the sake of 
life ; — they shall no more marry, but men and women, 
the children of marriage, shall be as the angels. 
Through the death of the human species shall be gained, 
as the consummation of all, the immortality of the indi- 
viduals. They who are accounted worthy of that world 

— in whom life has reached such survival worth — are 
equal to the angels, and are the sons of God.^ 

1 Luke XX. 36. In relation to the origin and the end of sex in evolu- 
tion see the author's Place of Death in Evolution, pp. 24, 1 33-135. It would 



192 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Before we may approach any nearer from the natural- 
ist's side to the hope thus suggested, some other ques- 
tions which meet us at this point must be resolved, and 
some further principles of spiritual direction in nature 
need to be elucidated. 

seem unnecessary to remark, if some critics had not mistaken the point, 
that it is not supposed that the products of sex, the distinctions between 
men and women, are to be lost according to this conception of future 
social immortality ; but only that sex itself, the means of the diversification 
and enrichment of life, is to disappear when its work in evolution is done. 



CHAPTER IX 

RETROGRESSION IN EVOLUTION 

One of the questions which confront our hope of 
better life for man, is raised by the unmistakable fact of 
retrogression in nature. The process of individualiza- 
tion, which has reached so high a plane in our personal 
life, leaves open at every step of it the possibility of a 
fall. On any height of life thus far attained, a fall from 
life is possible. Can we hope to gain for the individual 
life some height at last from which no fall may be 
possible ? Or shall descent even into the depths be the 
last end of evolution ? After the whole struggle and 
the supreme achievement of personal being and joy, shall 
death, not life, prove to be the final law ? What, if any, 
are the facts touching this issue of greatest concern to 
man, and may we read them in any interpretative light? 

Retrogression is certainly a fact in evolution. At 
times in nature's progress there has been some slipping 
backwards of the wheels. From life's straight and 
narrow way there have been all along deviations on 
either side. Nor has the path of life been uniformly 
an ascending one. Some loss, at times seemingly cruel 
loss, is to be seen on the field of life. Even under 
normal conditions metabolism, as it is called, or the 

193 



194 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

series of changes always going on in the nutrition of an 
organism, is both constructive and destructive, an up- 
building and a pulling down. Under unfavorable con- 
ditions a species may lose the foothold which it had 
already gained, and perish. Degeneration is a familiar 
fact. De-evolution is always possible in the cycles of 
endless change. Higher forms will lapse into lower ; 
vital products may break down ; the crystal can be 
ground to powder ; the elements may be dissolved with 
fervent heat. A descent of man — his fall from his 
high estate — is not outside the natural possibilities. 
Anywhere along life's way, even at its highest, death 
may be met coming naturally there, and not appearing 
suddenly as a supernatural enemy. But is the entrance 
of death a defeat of life ? Is retrogression a passing 
phase, or final tendency of evolution ? Is the fall a 
temporary incident, or a necessary and irretrievable loss 
of life ? Furthermore, where retrogression and descent 
may be observed, is there also on closer scrutiny to be 
discerned any principle of restoration in nature ? Can 
any principle of life be discovered by means of which 
evil shall be held within limits, and finally be overcome 
of good? 

We can only judge of what is unavoidable or necessary 
in nature from the actual course of events. From that 
which nature has done we must learn what can be done. 
As matter of fact we observe that variation — the life- 
enriching potency of nature, — itself involves the possi- 
bility of retrogressions. Variations which are not fitted 
to survive have occurred, and been rejected. Some 
oscillation of life below as well as above the mean, 



RETROGRESSION IN EVOLUTION 195 

results from the same principle of variation which is 
nature's chosen method of advance. 

A scientific generalization, which is known as Galton's 
law, is here to the point ; it has been called " the law 
of filial regression." Galton demonstrated through 
much research a law of averages in evolution, or a 
tendency in natural variation to return to the mean ; 
as, for instance, the children of very tall parents are not 
always so tall, and the children of small parents not so 
short as their fathers and mothers ; and a similar ten- 
dency towards the average prevails with regard to the 
intellectual stature, the children of genius are not so 
remarkable, and fortunately the children even of matched 
stupidity may not be so dull as their parents.^ We 
may observe a similar tendency towards the mean in the 
moral sphere ; are we not all apt to be quite content 
with keeping our conduct up to the average standards 
of social propriety, civic virtues, and even religious 
customs ? In view of this natural tendency towards the 
mean between extremes of development, it is evident 
that progress is to be gained and secured, if at all, by 
leveling the whole mass up. Among the conditions 
of progressive evolution, this give and play of life 
backwards and forwards, above and below the average, 
seems to be necessary. The bearings of nature's wheel 
are never screwed too tight to permit of some oscillation, 
so that it may go. Some deterioration seems to be an 
incidental expense as part of the cost of progress. 

The possibility of retrogression, which is involved in 
any progressive evolution, is not lessened, rather it 

1 Galton, Natural Inheritance : Hereditary Genius. 



196 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

grows greater and more ominous, the higher up life may 
succeed in climbing. And degeneracy becomes more 
marked and more repulsive the more finely organized 
the forms in which it appears. In the more complex 
and more vitally valuable organisms there may ensue a 
process of degeneracy, which shall involve more exten- 
sive and disastrous evil in proportion to the worth of 
the organization in w^hich decay has started. 

A single isolated cell may be maltreated by a biol- 
ogist, and, if he gives some poison to it, certain degen- 
erative changes in its protoplasm will soon follow, or 
its activities may be entirely destroyed. If the cell 
exists not for itself alone, but as a part of some tissue, 
then, besides its loss of its normal activities, other and 
more extended consequences follow ; other cells will 
suffer with it; the tissue of wliich it is a part becomes 
affected, and may cease entirely to fulfil its function in 
the body which it serves. Then the wdiole body may 
perish. The individual cells of a cancerous growth, for 
instance, are known to multiply abnormally ; they will 
form several figures of division at once, thus showing 
signs of rapid degeneracy ; and as a result the entire tissue 
in which they grow speedily degenerates, and death en- 
sues. So degeneracy increases in extent and complexity 
with organization. The evil of it becomes greater with 
advancing individualization. 

Not only does this hold true when we consider, as we 
have just been doing, the phenomena of disease, but also 
when we observe the course of retrogressive evolution, 
which may occur when a species is subjected to unfavor- 
able conditions for its self-maintenance at the height of 



RETROGRESSION IN EVOLUTION 197 

its development. Acquired powers may be forfeited by 
long-continued disuse; under unfavorable conditions 
organs may become atrophied, and descendants may be 
dwarfed, or otherwise set back on the scale of life when 
compared with their parental or related forms. A single 
chapter of natural history is enough for illustration, — 
it might be entitled a chapter concerning the ways in 
which eyes are lost. We select two or three instances 
from it. There is a relative of the well known lobster, 
by name EryonicuSy whose residence is at the depth of 
825 yards in the ocean. There is not much light at that 
depth where Eryonicus lives. Accordingly he has dis- 
pensed with the well developed optical apparatus which 
his relative, our friend the lobster, finds useful where he 
lives at a less and better-lighted depth. In Eryonicus 
the optic stalk has been reduced, and at its extremity, 
where in kindred littoral forms the eye is borne, there 
remains only a depression, " as if the eye had been care- 
fully scooped out." ^ Another member of the crustacean 
family, Scolophthalmus by name, which lives down at a 
depth of 4000 yards, possesses still an eye-stalk which 
ends in spines, but it is devoid of eyes. There is one 
species which is interesting because in itself it " ex- 
hibits all grades of degradation according to the depth 
at which it lives. This creature — Cymonomus — which, 
when near the surface, has fully formed eyes upon mov- 
able stalks, at a depth of a few hundred yards exhibits 
movable stalks without eyes ; and at 1500 yards the 
stalks are fixed and end in spines. " ^ We might add that 
this illustrates the manner also in which men may lose 

1 Evolution by Atrophy, lut. Scien. Ser., p. 188. 2 Ji^id,^ p. 190. 



198 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

their eyes — their power of moral and spiritual vision — 
according to the depths at which they habitually live. 

Moreover, natural history records numerous instances 
of retrogressive evolution under too favorable conditions 
of existence, as in the life history of some parasites. A 
barnacle has degenerated from a free swimming form. 
One little creature which has, to begin with, three pairs 
of legs and an eye, when it settles down to comfortable 
existence on a crab, which is its host, — when, as it were, 
it becomes content to hang its hat on its father-in-law's 
hat-tree, — loses after a while its eye and its legs, and 
becomes a mere absorbent nutritive sac. 

Without describing other examples of organic degen- 
eracy from entering what has been called the " vicious 
circle of parasitism," we would call attention especially 
to the fact that the possibility of degeneracy bears 
direct proportion to the amount of life which has been 
acquired. A special sense, like the eye, represents a 
long and arduous achievement of nature ; but that, as 
we have just stated, may be lost through retrogressive 
life. The possibility of loss, of fall, of death, may be 
said in general to grow greater, as the process of in- 
dividuation is carried further and higher. The pos- 
sibility of fall will therefore be greatest upon the 
highest plane of personality. From the spiritual height 
of humanity the fall has been the deepest and the 
darkest. There is no creature so fallen as a man who 
bears on his face the mark of the beast. Perversion 
of self-conscious intelligence marks the limit of degen- 
eracy which, as we have seen, is incidental to evolution. 
The sin of the world reaches an extreme of natural re- 



RETROGRESSION IN EVOLUTION 199 

version from the type ; — it is loss of the divine image, 
which is man's birthright. 

In this connection the question arises, how is death 
to be regarded in relation to the fall of man? The 
naturalist sees that death entered into the world for the 
sake of life, and that throughout the course of evolu- 
tion death has been a minister of the dispensation of 
life. It is not a sign or consequence of degeneracy, but 
a means rather of the rejuvenescence and enrichment of 
life. The biblical theologian perceives that death has 
acquired in man's history a moral adaptation and use 
over and above its original natural function. It has be- 
come also a minister of the dispensation of moral life ; 
it has an acquired use in the moral order as a means of 
probation. The fear of death is a mark of human de- 
generacy — a punitive consequence of man's sin.^ 

Keversion in nature before the plane of free personal 
life had been reached, was without moral character. 
We may regard it as accidental, if by accidental we 
mean simply that one or another of several possibilities 
in nature has become actual. There is no responsibility 
in the germ for itself, if a seed fails of fructification ; 
there is no wrong done, if an organ is stunted or 
malformed under the conditions of its environment. 
When Hertwig pressed apart portions of frog's eggs 
which naturally go together, and under the pressure of 
glass plates produced imperfect or diminutive embryos, 

1 We pass by this important topic with a word, because it has been dis- 
cussed in the author's Place of Death in Evolution, sqq particularly chap, i., 
on Tite Entrance and Use of Death in Nature ; and chap. v. on TJie Biological 
and the Biblical View of Death. See also Jones, The Ascent Through 
Christ, pp. 168-185. 



200 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

the responsibility for such failures of typical develop- 
ment was certainly not in the frogs, whatever may be 
said of the responsibility of the biologist whose in- 
telligent manipulation produced those unfair conditions 
and predetermined those unnatural frogs. Similarly in 
the process of individuation, up to man's conscience, at 
least, if there be any moral responsibility, it is to be 
located, not within the evolution itself, but without the 
evolution. It belongs to the prior and predetermining 
Intelligence, which discloses its own character as the 
evolution takes form, and moves on towards its issues. 
Up to man, responsibility for evolution lies outside the 
process of evolution ; with the advent of man responsi- 
bility enters into the evolution. The original responsibil- 
ity for nature is the divine responsibility, if there is a 
God. But in man's moral life evolution takes on a new 
quality ; it becomes also a self-responsible evolution. 
The primal responsibility of the Author of it does not 
cease ; but a secondary responsibility of the creature 
begins. At the point of free-spiritual life, the Creator 
shares responsibility with the creation. And the creat- 
ure receives self-obligation from the Creator. Man not 
only is made, he becomes a maker. Man through his 
living makes his own soul, or he unmakes it. So our 
human life is represented by the Christ as an endurance 
through which we win soul, — " In your patience," he 
said, " ye shall win your souls." In the spiritual order, 
soul is to be acquired from life — it is something for us 
to win. Or soul may be lost out of our lives. ^ 

1 The scientific evidence of the statement above that responsibilty for 
evolution has entered with man into the evolution, is to be found in the 



RETROGRESSION IN EVOLUTION 201 

If we approacli in this natural way the fact of retro- 
gression in the life of man, we shall find a very simple 
answer to the difficulty with which over anxious the- 
ologians would put a stop to any evolutionary science 
with their doctrine of man's fall. How, they ask, can 
evolution account for the fall? Very naturally, and 
also very profoundly, we answer. The most awful 
doctrine of the possibility of fall is opened by an 
evolutionary philosophy. It is possibility of fall down 
the whole ascent of life. There may be fearful descent 
from natiu'c's spiritual height. The degeneracy of man 
may be moral as well as physical ; for at the height of 
evolution where man stands, and from which he may 
fall, a self -responsible life has been gained. 

This evolutionary doctrine of man's fall escapes, 
however, the consequence that it must be necessarily a 
failure of the evolution itself. It does not follow, 
though man falls, that all is lost. It does not follow 
from any degeneracy of human sin that evolution as a 
whole may not prove to be beneficent. For, as may be 
seen in many instances, an individual organism may fail 
of vital adaptation to its environment, and be cast aside, 
while the evolution of life goes successfully on. A 
variety may survive for a season, and then be found 
wanting; species may follow species across the field of 
life, and disappear; but the evolution is not thereby 

facts which show man's influence in changing the natural course of events. 
Man lives and works, not merely as a product of evolution, but as himself a 
factor of evolution. His action modifies to some extent the course of 
nature beneath him ; and, within limits, he determines the direction of his 
own evolution. The law of natural selection is modified by the higher law 
of conscious choice. 



202 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

frustrated. All the while it may be marching on 
through defeats to triumph. Within the elastic but 
infrustrable lines of the existing order, as in a beneficent 
network of divine decrees, under the beneficent law of 
the universe as one good whole, our free personality 
has its sphere, finds room for its action, and meets with 
limits and bounds also to its possible fall and e^T.1. 

Moreover, it is thus seen to be but a superficial view 
to regard man's fall as a fall upwards. It is in itself 
considered a descent, nothing but a descent, and never 
an ascent. No retrogression taken by itself can be re- 
garded as a step forwards. Man's fall is a fall away 
from his true type. Sin is a plunge downwards, and 
into darkest depths. 

But while it is man's fall downwards, at the same 
time it is never a fall out of the evolution; it is included 
in the vast beneficence of the whole process of life. 
Eetrogression is provided for in the evolution: a falling 
away is not a falling out of the scope and compass of the 
evolution. In itself a defeat, in itself man's sin, it may 
nevertheless as a part of the whole, and as a moment of 
life, serve other purpose and confirm in its results life's 
eventual victory. The advance is made not by means 
of the fall, as mere naturalism might say ; neither is it 
made in spite of the fall, as sheer supernaturalism might 
declare; the advance is made by the evolution which 
moves on through the fall and beyond it, as was deter- 
mined even from the foundation of the world. The one 
divine movement, within which scope has been allowed 
for the play of life and the exercise of human freedom, 
carries all along with it to its infrustrable goal. It 



RETROGRESSION IN EVOLUTION 203 

carries man's fall on to its triumph of creative and 
redeeming love. There is nothing unnatural or incon- 
ceivable in this. Man may rush with all speed towards 
the west, while the great world, swinging on its axis, 
quietly carries him eastward into the dawn. Man by 
his own motion cannot escape the rising sun. So the 
movement of evolution, the divine movement of it as a 
whole, shall bear man's personal history of sin on with 
it to the coming day of the Lord. 

We have been careful to make these distinctions in 
order that no vague moral indifference may be thrown 
over the familiar facts of human degeneracy. For the 
individual, under any true and wholesome evolutionary 
conception, sin is still hateful ; but for our human hope 
and trust, under an evolutionary conception large 
enough to comprehend the forces of redemption, even 
the sin of the world may be regarded, to apply a char- 
acteristic German phrase, as an overcome standpoint. 

One other aspect of degeneration in nature should be 
noticed in this connection ; for it suggests some possible 
ulterior use for the outlying spiritual universe of man's 
history of sin upon this earth. We refer to the highly 
interesting fact, which has often been noticed by natu- 
ralists, that retrogression in nature may serve to intro- 
duce a new variety, and thereby promote some further 
development of life. Moreover, the reduction or loss of 
some parts of an organism may result in the higher 
development of others and the perfection of the organ- 
ism as a whole. Now the spiritual universe is to be 
conceived as one moral whole. We are to think of it 
as an organic unity. According to the Scriptures the 



204 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

spiritual universe is one moral order. The analogy 
which may be drawn from natural degeneration, sug- 
gests, therefore, that there may be ulterior reactions for 
good upon the whole moral universe from the moral 
history of this world. It was an apostle who spoke of 
himself in deadly trial as made "a spectacle to the 
world, both to angels and to men." (1 Cor. iv. 9.) 
We do not yet know the further and larger organic 
relations of man's life to the entire spiritual universe. 
There may lie in the remoter consequences of human 
sin and suffering a vaster beneficence than we may 
know. 

The further vital inquiry into which the course of 
our argument now directly runs, relates to the restora- 
tive energy of evolution. This also shall be for us first 
a question of fact: Does evolution, taken as a whole, 
tend towards the removal of degenerac}^? Are decay 
and death in evolution's larger use rendered serviceable 
to life ? And if working through nature there is to be 
discovered hint or sign of any principle of restoration, 
may that same principle be completed in some still 
diviner method of human redemption? Still further is 
it possible scientifically to imagine that through man's 
life of moral reversion as a finally eliminated variation, 
some vaster good may be gained, and for the whole 
spiritual universe ? Such inquiries belong to the next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER X 

RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 

We shall search first over the lower plane of animal 
life for signs of the working of any restorative energies, 
which may throw light upon the character and ultimate 
tendencies of evolution. 

We observe at the very beginning a certain conserva- 
tive power in the germ — its inherent tendency to hold 
itself true to its type. An original and persistent con- 
servatism resides in the fidelity of every germ or seed 
to its specific character. A primal restorative tendency 
in living nature appears in the constitutional reluc- 
tance at least of the germinal matter to transmit bodily 
mutilations. 

We are aware that we touch here upon one of the most 
controverted points of modern biology. It has been a 
much disputed question whether either virtues or defects, 
which are acquired by parents during their lifetime, can 
be directly transmitted to their offspring. For the sake 
of clearness, and because of its importance in this con- 
nection, we would state definitely this problem to which 
we have previously referred. 

In every animal body above the protozoa^ two kinds of 
cells exist, — the germ cells, through which life is re- 
produced, and the somatic cells, by means of which the 

205 



206 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

body is built up. These two kinds of cells are discrim- 
inated by nature very early in the life -history of the Qgg, 
Now the question concerning acquired bodily character- 
istics in the last analysis of it is simply this : Can modi- 
fications which have been received by an animal during 
its lifetime in its body-cells, be given over directly to 
the germ cells, and through them inherited by its off- 
spring? That is a still mooted question. One school 
of biologists maintain that it is and can be done; the 
other school strenuously deny the fact of any such direct 
transmission of acquired bodily characters. Those who 
affirm it are known as the Neo-Lamarckians ; those who 
deny it as the Neo-Darwinians. The evidence is con- 
flicting and as yet unsatisfactory. 

Bodily modifications acquired by a parent are cer- 
tainly not taken up easily and at once into the germ- 
plasm and transmitted to a descendant. We cannot by 
our virtues or our vices directly and certainly either 
make or spoil our children. It is well that we cannot. 
The continuous germ-plasm of life resents direct inter- 
ference. It tends to restore in the offspring in its nat- 
ural integrity the life which may have been mutilated 
in the parental form. The germinal matter is tenacious 
of its own vital determination. It maintains with much 
persistence its specific and its individual characters, al- 
though possibly under some conditions it may be pois- 
oned or tainted. We are clearly within the limits of 
ascertained science when we hold that nature in its 
germs shows a conservative and self-restorative ten- 
dency. At the primal sources of life any mutilating or 
degenerating influences are resisted by the germinal 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 207 

tendency to remain true to the type. Variation indeed 
is permitted and carefully provided for in fertilization; 
sex enters early into nature for life's rejuvenescence and 
diversification : but in the fertilized seed or egg of plants 
or animals, variation, which is necessary for the enrich- 
ment of life, is speedily checked and firmly held within 
bounds by heredity. Nature is thus conservative as well 
as progressive from the start. She is both at once, and 
within the same little germinal dot of protoplasm. 

We notice still further that a conservative tendency, 
which is thus seen to be inherent within the germ, 
characterizes the organism as one whole; and that, per- 
vading every part, it acts as a restorative check and 
balance whenever variation in any direction threatens 
the existence of a species. Without raising just now 
the strictly biological issue whether this energy resides 
in the organism as an inherent force of growth, ^ or 
whether it is the resultant of all the inner and outward 
influences which act upon an organism, and which are 
expressed in its form; our immediate insistence is that 
as matter of fact some check and wholesome virtue 
works in the life-history of every creature against exces- 
sive or hurtful variation. In some way, not easily 
understood by our science, a plant or an animal body 
exerts a restraining and even a corrective influence over 
its parts and members, to prevent undue development or 
variation in any one direction to its too great prejudice 
as one living thing. Our biologists are now recognizing 
among the factors of evolution to be dealt with this 
vital influence of the whole over the growing parts. 

1 The bathmism, " growth-force," of Cope. 



208 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Under the influence of natural selection, and through 
the co-ordination of all the parts, growth too rapid or 
too extreme on this side or on that, in this member or 
another, is controlled. Life, moving this way or that, 
too far or too fast, is pulled back, and sent forward in 
the one straight way; the balance is finely kept, as is 
best for the organism as a whole. Symmetry — itself a 
marvellous factor in evolution — is one of nature's first 
laws. But more than this remains to be noticed. 

It is further to be observed that organic matter within 
certain limits possesses a self-regenerative power. In 
many instances a lost part of a body may be restored, or 
from a single surviving part an entire body may be 
made anew. The phenomena of regeneration among 
plants and animals are so well known that we need only 
briefly summarize them. It is a matter of common 
observation that a shell-fish may lose a claw, or a lizard 
its tail, and the loss be made good. The skilled gar- 
dener takes advantage of this self-regenerative power, 
when by means of slips and cuttings he increases his 
stock for the market. " Cultivators of bath sponges 
bed out little fragments to keep up a convenient sup- 
ply." 1 The Abbe Trembley, in the eighteenth century, 
performed experiments upon Hydras, which furnish the 
classical illustration of natural regeneration. H« 
pleased his friends, and troubled the Church, by showing 
how a part of a polyp can create itself anew into a 
whole polyp. If a Hydra be cut in two across the mid- 
dle, or divided longitudinally, from the halves two per- 
fect Hydras may be formed. 

1 Geddes and Thomson, Evolution of Sex, p. 188, ed. 1895. 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 209 

Of this regenerative power of nature it may be said 
that it seems to belong originally to organic matter, and 
that it is allied to the powers and processes of growth in 
general. Living matter to a certain extent is self- 
recuperative under the same conditions in which it may 
live and grow at all. Regeneration, like growth, is a 
primal virtue of organic matter. The cells of a tissue 
or organ at points of casual wounds possess not only 
their specific properties, but also the characters of the 
whole body, so that they can become buds from which a 
lost part may be reproduced, or a new organism be 
formed.^ 

This regenerative power, however, as we have been 
careful to say, is a limited one. It is far from being co- 
extensive with evolution. It diminishes as specializa- 
tion of parts increases. It disappears entirely from the 
most developed organs of the body. There is little of it 
enough left, we may think, in our anatomy. We may 
sometimes wonder why we do not possess more of this 
power of self-repair, which the lower creatures seem to 
have in such abundance. They can restore their own 
heads when they are cut off. But with us only Chris- 
tian Science, so-called, might think a lost head on again. 
Even that fondly assumed independence of matter might 
seem slightly physiological, if man had left so much as a 
worm's power of self-renewal, and by taking thought of 
his stature could add to it. Dentistry might be a need- 

1 Hertwig, The Biological Problem of To-daij, p. 48. Weismann's view 
that regeneration is acquired through natural selection is interesting, but 
it is neglected above, as the manner of the origin of this regenerative 
power does not affect the interpretation which we are making of the fact 

of it. 

1-4 



210 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

less art, if we had not lost in our development the power 
of making over our own bones. It is only a remnant of 
nature's original restorative virtue which the highest 
animal organization retains. But the original tendency 
is significant. It is indicative of the first intention of 
nature, that it is in its beginnings restorative as well 
as creative. 

Another interesting class of facts come under our 
observation, which serve to illustrate also a certain 
substitutional power in nature. It is the power to make 
one part take the place of, or to do the work of some 
other part for the life of the organism. This power 
may be observed in several related yet distinct manifes- 
tations of its vitality. One of these is illustrated in the 
remarkable feat which a Titon larva performs when, 
having lost its sight, it reproduces from an adjacent 
epithelial cell the lens of its own eye. Thus it takes a 
cell which had its proper natural use, and from it makes 
a cell adapted to a wholly different function. It sub- 
stitutes in its economy for the sake of vision one part, 
or the transformation of one part, for another lost part.^ 
To give another example, if a cut be made in a sea- 
rose, and the fissure be kept open, in a little while, from 
the surrounding cells, a new mouth will be reproduced 
with a row of tentacles around it. 

1 Much interest has recently been excited in biological circles over this 
reproduction of the lens in some organisms. Wolff regards it as an 
extremely teleological adaptation; — the cell is transformed into a lens for 
the purpose of sight. A. Fischel, on the contrary, seeks to account for it 
mechauically as a " topographical " process ; — the adaptations take place 
under the influence of the surrounding parts. See a summary of the dis- 
cussion in Virchow's Jahresbericht ueber die Leistungen, etc., 1901, Bd. i. 
Ab. i. ss. 83-86. Also, Morgan, T, H., Regeneration, p. 203. 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 211 

In a somewhat different way this substitutionary 
power of nature finds illustration in the manner in which 
one organ may take upon itself the functions of another 
injured organ. Or one part of an organ may be enabled 
to do the work of another part besides its own task. 
For example, the pathologists inform us that if one 
kidney is removed, the other becomes enlarged, and it 
will attempt to do the work of two. So also when por- 
tions of the liver are extirpated, the remaining part 
begins a compensative growth, by means of which the 
functions of the liver may still be discharged. " Under 
extraordinary circumstances almost every organ of the 
body can do more than the amount of its normal activity; 
it possesses, as one may say, a reserve power, exceed- 
ing its usual work, which may still further be used." ^ 
Similarly we may regard the adaptive power of the mus- 
cular and connective tissues for uses beyond their nat- 
ural wont, in case of injuries or demands upon the body 
which otherwise might not be met. For instance, Roux 
has shown the wonderful manner in which the fibrous 
connective tissue in the caudal fin of the dolphin is 
adapted to a rudder plate, as it is moved in many direc- 
tions by the action of the muscles, and thereby rendered 
in special parts now stiff, and again flexible.^ This 
limited power of substitution of the work or function of 
one organ for another, shows again the strong restorative 
energy which is inherent in living matter. Nature, 
when foiled in the effort to replace an injured member, 
may stimulate another organ to do extra work. 

1 Hertwig, Die Zelle, s. 165. 

2 See, for this and other iustauces, Hertwig, Opus c.it. pp. 172-175: 
Herbert Spencer, Princ. of IJivl. i. § GO. 



212 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Still another kind of natural substitution is to be 
mentioned; it has been called anticipatory substitution, 
or the temporary use of some provision until a better 
form for the same purpose shall be grown. A note- 
worthy instance of this kind of predictive substitution 
is found in the history of the formation of the backbone 
in the Vertebrate embryos. Professor Thomson has 
thus described it : " In all Vertebrate embryos there is, 
for some time at least, a supporting axial rod or noto- 
chord, developed along the dorsal median line of the 
primitive gut. This persists throughout life in the 
lancelet and lamprey and a few old-fashioned types, but 
from fishes onwards it is gradually replaced in develop- 
ment by the backbone. The notochord does not become 
the backbone, which has a different (so-called meso- 
dermic) origin, but is replaced by it. The notochord is 
a temporary structure, around which the vertebral 
column is constructed, as a tall brick chimney might be 
built around an internal scaffolding of wood." Mr. 
Thomson adds: "Of course we require to know more 
about the way in which the old-fashioned structure pre- 
pares the way for and stimulates the growth of its 
future substitute, but the general idea of one organ lead- 
ing on to another is suggestive." ^ 

In this connection we may observe also a somewhat 
kindred power which may be characterized as a persist- 
ent tendency in evolution to find new methods when old 
ones seem to have reached the end of their usefulness. 
Perhaps this characteristic might be called a reforma- 
tive rather than a restorative power of nature. You can 

1 Science of Life, p. 137. 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 218 

observe it in general by a mere glance at the develop- 
ment of the chief animal types. When one way of de- 
velopment seemed blocked, and there was no progress 
farther in that direction, evolution found another way, 
and went forward again on that new road. One orig- 
inal way of life was tried in the moUusks. The animal 
threw a protective shell over itself, and settled down 
comfortably in the mud. When irritated by a parasite, 
its easy and indolent defence was simply to secrete a 
pearl. But the protective shell becomes eventually a 
hindrance and prevents life from gaining sense and 
freedom. The oyster is conservatism in its shell. 

Soon nature takes up another model. The vital 
organs are still protected within a horny covering, but 
the body is divided into segments, muscles are devel- 
oped, and organs of sense and locomotion. More atten- 
tion is paid to brains; and insects like the busy and 
intelligent bees, represent nature's next method of re- 
forming her vital moulds. But erelong that way of 
development seems blocked. The model chosen is 
excellent for swift flight, and some head also is gained 
in the insects ; but an external kind of skeleton has its 
limitations, and the insects, after starting out in a 
promising direction, came to a standstill in size and in- 
telligence ; — nothing more excellent seems to remain to 
be achieved in that direction. Nature, not to be foiled, 
finds a new structural plan. This time in the verte- 
brates she puts the skeleton inside, and tries again. 
Huge reptiles are produced, great birds and uncouth 
monsters destined to receive in time as uncouth Latin 
names in our zoology. But again the way of progress in 



214 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

the development of muscle opens no further possibility. 
The greatest athletic age was the carboniferous period. 
There were giants in the land, and in the water, in those 
days, only they had little intelligence to do team work. 
Again nature improves her working model. This time 
she pays special attention to the nervous organization ; 
that takes the chief place in the development, until at 
last the race ceases to be to the swift and the battle to 
the strong, and a man's life consists not in his brawn 
but in his brains. We might form some idea of this 
general character of evolution, if we should compare it 
with the improvement which man has made in building 
vessels, putting side by side the many successive models 
from the original dug-out of a savage, or a Chinese 
junk, or a Nova Scotia schooner up to the finest yacht, 
or the swiftest ocean greyhound. Yet nature's work of 
improving her models has been a greater — shall we not 
say — a more thoughtful development. 

What, then, we are now ready to ask, is the full and 
final significance of such facts as these, which show a 
conserving, regenerative, and in a sense reforming 
energy and tendency in the nature-process ? 

The mechanics of bodily regeneration have constituted 
a distinct problem in biology. How was this power 
originally gained, and how or why in the higher organ- 
isms has it been repressed ? This is a twofold question. 
If we assume that in its origin this power of an organism 
to reproduce a lost part of itself is something very like 
its natural power of growing, and that regeneration orig- 
inally is associated with growth-power, still the question 
remains, How has it happened that this ability to repair 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 215 

loss has diminished with increasing organization until 
among the higher animals almost no regenerative power 
remains ? Mechanically this may possibly be explained 
as a consequence of increased differentiation of struc- 
ture. The structure may become so specialized, and 
each specialized organ may represent so long a course 
of development into which so many different factors 
have entered, that the primal regenerative power, char- 
acteristic of simpler tissues and less complex cells, may 
have ceased to be sufficient for the task of restoring 
anew a mutilated or lost organ, such as an eye or a lung. 
So far, then, biology may go in explanation of the facts 
of natural regeneration. Interpretative philosophy has 
next to take them up, and to consider their value as 
indications of the character of evolution. 

We may rationally understand this tendency in the 
nature -process to repair loss as a disclosure of its first 
good intent. Natural regeneration is a sign of original 
good character in evolution. If evolution be morally 
chargeable with waste, and with leaving open possibili- 
ties of evil, it must also be credited with a primal ten- 
dency to repair loss. If nature admits evil, it also 
reacts against evil whenever it becomes actual. Nature 
has at least so much moral character from the start as 
this restorative power may signify. 

Again the law of the diminution of regenerative power 
appears to be part of the cost of higher life. It is loss 
for gain. This likewise is a good sign. Natural selec- 
tion carries with it the corollary that the utmost possible 
shall be made of living matter. All that can be gained 
is to be won from the struggle of existence. Now for 



216 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

the sake of making, or to speak scientifically without 
reference to ends, in the course of making the utmost 
possible out of living matter, a decrease of its self-re- 
storative power has become unavoidable ; it may prove 
to be a mechanical necessity, if you please. The fail- 
ure of this power becomes thus a necessary part of the 
cost of evolution. It must lose much, that it may gain 
more. It is the price paid for advancement along the 
line of organization. In order that a finely specialized 
organ, like the eye or the brain, may fulfil its function, 
its total living energy — the sum of the energies of its 
cells — is concentrated on its specific activity; its whole 
available vitality becomes engaged in fulfilling its special 
function ; it has no surplus left by which to renew itself, 
if it suffers loss. Very much as a man absorbed in a 
work which tasks his highest powers, loses aptitude, and 
has no strength for lesser work ; so finely specialized or- 
gans are devoted with all their vital strength to the task 
which they are called to render to the body. The lower 
animal power of self-restoration is sacrificed to the higher 
function. Nature never seems to hesitate to make sac- 
rifices for good results. Nature does not stop to count 
the cost when an advance in any vital value is to be 
gained. 

Such, then, being the restorative system of nature 
below man, we must next inquire whether any analo- 
gous principle of restoration is apparent on the higher 
plane of personal life. From the unity of nature we 
should expect to find evidences of the working of some 
restorative energy in human life and society. We 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 217 

might suppose that evolution would not lose utterly this 
primal benignancy, which its regenerative tendencies 
manifest, when man appears on the dizzy heights of 
freedom, to experience his awful fall, and to live in the 
misery and shame of his civilizations. We should natu- 
rally look for some new manifestation of this original 
character of evolution, and possibly for some larger 
scope and power of it in the sphere of the moral and the 
social life of humanity. 

In one respect, as already observed, the power of 
regeneration has drawn near its end in man's life. There 
is not much more of it left physiologically. A little 
healing power of nature is left in us ; and it is possible 
also that man may possess physiologically some power of 
acquiring immunity against certain forms of disease. 
A recent evolutionist indeed has gone so far as to sug- 
gest that a natural immunity of mankind from alco- 
holism might be acquired. If we do not by severe 
artificial legal selection eliminate the drunkard, natural 
selection, he thinks, in the course of time might pro- 
duce a human species immune from the effects of alco- 
holic drinks; only it is added that in this way of 
temperance reform the world " will never be thoroughly 
sober until it has first been thoroughly drunk." ^ Prob- 
ably hereafter more restorative power for our life may 
be called forth and directed by sanitary efficiency and 
medical knowledge to the relief of much sickness, suffer- 
ing, and waste. 

With this primal principle of natural restoration to 
guide us we approach the problem of evil in our human 

1 C. A. Reid, The Present Evolution of Man, p. 370. 



218 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

life, and behold prophetic light thrown upon it from the 
past. Nature has not written over any gate of life, 
" Abandon hope all ye that enter here." Even when one 
way has ended in a blank wall, erelong another gate has 
been found and flung open, and life has passed on rejoic- 
ing and hoping again. Neither nature nor Christianity 
is a pessimist. There was one pessimist, indeed, among 
the twelve disciples ; but he was that man who went out 
in the dark, and hanged himself. He knew not that the 
wasted ointment, as the story of it should be told 
wherever the gospel is preached, would be worth more 
even in relieving the wants of the poor, than it could 
have been had every wasted perfume of it been turned 
into bar of solid gold. We have found how natural 
wastefulness beneath us may be eventually a benefit and 
service for life. In moral continuation of the great prin- 
ciple of regenerative vital power there may be redemption 
for man even at the cost of sacrifice. On the higher plane 
of personality power to restore a limb or an eye has been 
lost; but power to renew a mind or to redeem a soul 
may be waiting its appointed hour of manifestation. 
Nature's earlier virtue of regenerative energy may be 
carried in the highest sphere to full completion in some 
redeeming grace. Again it is a question of fact and of 
history. Has the Spiritual Power in which the universe 
is constituted, revealed itself in human life and history 
as a redeeming potency and promise ? There would be 
no unnaturalness in its working, if in our moral life we 
should find evidence of its operation. If from obser- 
vation of human affairs, or from the special course of 
man's history from Moses to the Christ, or in the day 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 219 

of his grace ever since, we find good reason to believe 
that there has been and is a renewing energy of the 
Spirit, working in vital union with man's life, and that 
humanity is capable of such spiritual regeneration ; there 
would be in such belief nothing unnatural, nothing con- 
trary to the natural capacity of life for regeneration 
from the same source and power from which it came 
forth. Capacity for regeneration, in each order of life 
after its kind, is one of the essential vital capacities. 
The Christian redemption is not to be regarded as some- 
thing apart, as an isolated and artificial provision of 
divine grace for man ; it falls rather into the univer- 
sal order, and it will bring to highest and farthest 
ethical and spiritual completion one of the first prin- 
ciples in which nature itself is organized. For among 
other laws nature is made on a restorative principle. 
There is, as the Christian word assures us, an eternal pur- 
pose of redemption. 

It must suffice for our object only to glance now at 
the operation of the natural principle of restoration as 
it is manifested on the plane of personal life. Further 
discussion of it belongs not to natural theology, within 
which our present discussion is confined, but to the 
philosophy of history, and especially to the Christian 
doctrine of grace. 

We may mention, however, two aspects of the vital 
principle of restoration in its higher and freer working 
on the moral plane, which may receive some illustrative 
light from the lower world. 

We refer for one to a working principle of nature 
which may be called the law of release of spiritual 



220 THROUGH SCIEXCE TO FAITH 

energy, as the evolution advances. Xot only is it true 
that better adaptations for intelligent use are gained, 
but also it is true that with improved forms intelli- 
gence, immanent in nature, is set free for greater exer- 
cise of its energy. 

A spiritual energy which is held subject to other 
powers in a lower order of life, may be released from 
the conditions which had limited it. and spring un- 
bound to freer play, and serve larger uses in higher 
orders of being. This holds true, for example, with 
regfard to the use of intelliq-ence in the hio-her animal 
world. It had little scope in the limited nervous 
responses of the lowlier organisms. [Mind was held in 
bondage among the simpler animals. Intelligence is 
somewhat released, it is given larger range, it is freed 
for better service, among the higher animals. The 
radiates, for instance, have such heads, or nervous 
centres, as they possess, located near the middle of their 
organization ; the lower types of animals have met with 
but partial success in the attempt to t\vist themselves 
into such shape that, with their eyes more to the front, 
they might creep or swim T\'ith less devious motions. 
Such glimmer of intelligence as may be granted them 
is limited in its use by the position of the nervous 
ganglia at the centre, or on one side, of their structure, 
with their eye-spots on the edge of their mouth, or at 
the ends of their rays or arms. They can crawl around, 
but thev cannot move far with straightforward inten- 
tion. But some mollusks, like the squid, being built 
upon a somewhat improved plan, have managed to get 
their heads to the front, and as they have developed 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 221 

more motor organs and a better nervous system and 
prominent eyes in their heads, animal intelligence finds 
freer play in them, than, for instance, in the star-fish. 
The squid can use its head to some purpose as it moves 
about. It is a gain for the exercise of intelligence 
when an organism can see and move straightforwards. 
In other words, there is a release of intelligence from 
material limitations when the head and eyes are brought 
into the line of motion ; the vertebrates dart through 
the water, or fly through the air on wings swift as 
thought. Every improved specialization of structure 
sets animal intelligence free from some limitation, and 
renders it capable of more co-ordinated and seemingly 
purposeful activities. Not to multiply illustrations, 
it may be stated as a general law that with the develop- 
ment of life there is a larger release of the energies 
of intelligence from natural bonds under which they 
were held subject in lower organisms, existing under 
more limited material conditions. ^ The human will in 
its free action is the final, splendid witness to this 
natural law of the release of spiritual force. What can 
it not do ! The only ultimate limit to will is another 
will. The material world offers means for the activity 
of the spirit, but no final barriers to its power. A person 
can be withstood absolutely only by a person. Will is 
bounded, not by matter, but by will — man's will by 
the will of God. 

1 Compare this remark of Mr. Morgan : " Mind to some extent 
escapes from its organic thraldom, and is free to develop, still in accord- 
ance with the natural laws of its own proper being, but in relation to a 
new environment." Habit and Instinct, p. 334. 



222 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Now this same law holds good likewise of this prin- 
ciple of restoration. Its spiritual power is released, its 
sphere of operation is enlarged, its triumph becomes 
more glorious in the highest dispensation of hfe. 
Lower down, as has just been said, a lost limb may 
sometimes be restored by nature ; a mutilated form may 
be reconstructed; to a limited extent the function of 
one organ may be substituted for that of another, or an 
anticipator}^ service may be rendered by one part for 
the sake of the growth of a better form ; but no more 
than this can be wrought by the restorative power of 
nature under the conditions of her plant and animal 
life. And in the physiological order, regenerative 
energy soon reaches its necessary limits. But restora- 
tive virtue is set free for grander service on life's 
highest plane. In the evolution of man the regenera- 
tive principle becomes a dominant factor. In the human 
world it has large, sunny scope; in the moral sphere 
it becomes a quickening Spirit; and in the history of 
man's fall and redemption, free grace, which was never 
contrary to nature in her earlier and physical regenera- 
tions, becomes the distinguishing and crowning glory 
of the highest dispensation of life. So love, which was 
rudimentary and held in bondage, as it were, in the 
lower nature, is made free, and in the life of man love 
becomes the greatest of all. It is for Christian theology 
to show further how redeeming love works according 
to the natural laws of regeneration. God acts always 
naturally, in every order of being according to its kind, 
and in all the spheres everywhere like Himself. 

The Christian theology of redemption might be clari- 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 223 

fied and enriclied by a careful comparative science of 
the principle of restoration in all orders and spheres. 
Its workings, its methods, its limitations, its increase of 
opportunity, should be compared in the history of the 
world before man, and in human society. True analo- 
gies from the lower to the higher realms — analogies 
which are real and not misleading, because grounded 
in the unity of the Spirit in all the worlds — would 
thus be rendered available in Christian teaching and 
preaching. It would be profitable, for example, to 
institute a comparative study of the method of salvation 
in both the lower and the higher orders of nature in 
such particulars as these : — first, in the direct working 
of the forces of vital repair and renewal ; and, secondly, 
in the special method of substitution. For substitution, 
as we have just observed — substitution which even on 
nature's lower plane involves rudimentary sacrifice — 
is one of the great natural principles of regenerative 
life. Vicariousness, as such comparative study may 
teach our theology afresh, is a principle laid in the very 
foundations of the world. Vicariousness is not con- 
trary to nature's heart. There is an eternal atonement. 
We have much still to learn concerning the deeper 
naturalness of the love of God in Christ. But we 
glance in this direction only for a moment, that we may 
indicate a way of further rejuvenescence of Christian 
theology, which the new natural theology opens for 
faith. 

One other striking aspect of the principle of restora- 
tion, as we see it developing alike in nature and through 
human history, should not be passed by without com- 



224 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

ment, for it offers a further and impressive sign of the 
moral character of evolution as a whole. It is a feature 
of it which may be designated as the law of chminish- 
inof sacrifice and of increasino- service. 

It is a signal fact that as evolution proceeds and the 
higher spiritual forces of life are released, the necessity 
for sacrifice diminishes, while at the same time the 
field for service is enlarged. We have already observed 
the rudimentary forms of mutual service which are to be 
seen in primitive colonies of cells, in a division of labor 
between associated cells, and later in vital co-operation 
between the fully developed organs ; still further we 
may note those curious instances in which different 
animals help each other live, which are known in the 
books as examples of Symbiosis^ or living together. 
An early instance of tliis method of mutually dependent 
life — to mention one for all — is the interestino: case of 
an ordinary Radiolarian^ the life of which is maintained 
by a partnership which was at first a complete puzzle 
to the bioloofists. It is now known that certain little 
yellow cells, which are found embedded in a Radiolarian^ 
are distinct animals, which live upon the carbon and 
nitrogenous waste of their host, and which in turn 
repay its hospitality by decomposing its carbon dioxide, 
and giving it back free oxygen for its breath of life, and 
also through their own bodies supplying it with two 
important elements for its protoplasm. Service, mutual 
service, which in Symbiosis is seen to obtain as a law 
at the very root of life, becomes a more marked and 
prevalent principle all the way up. But on the other 
hand is not sacrifice, involving a seemingly immense 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 225 

waste of life, one of nature's obvious first principles? 
Life preys upon other life. Life is sacrificed to life. 
Service for a long while seems to be but little, and sac- 
rifice everywhere and ever}i:hing in nature. Nature is 
"red in tooth and claw." But look again and again. 
Make cross-sections through living nature at different 
periods, after long intervals, and what do we see ? 
What but a diminishing use of sacrifice, and an increas- 
ing use of service. This holds true in the higher plant 
and animal world. Amid destructive competition help- 
ful co-operation begins to count more.^ We find, not 
every creature warring against every other creature, 
but flocks and herds, and various animal associations 
for mutual protection and help. As nature's ideas be- 
come evolved, it is found to cost less waste of life to 
preserve life. The race though still to the swift, and 
the battle to the strong, becomes less deadly. The re- 
production of the species grows less sacrificial. Parents 
survive as trainers and helpers. Motherhood costs less 
sacrifice, and means more service. Travail and pain are 
forgotten for joy that a man-child is born into the world. 
Human motherhood shows that a serene height has 
been reached where one life does not need to be given 
up wholly for another life, but where the mother's life 
may be happily and helpfully prolonged for the other 
life of the child. In the human home sacrifice has 
become the vanishing element, and mutual service the 
dominant joy. Or, sacrifice, if it still must needs be, is 

1 This law comprehends the truth of the apparently altruistic side of 
evolution, which Mr. Drummoud has poetically depicted in his Ascent of 
Man. 

15 



226 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

there transmuted into service and glorified. More and 
more in the liistory of the world, as the higher energies 
of spirit are set free and prevail, nature's first hard 
necessity of sacrifice grows less, and service in its joy 
prevails. Cross-sections of human history, if made 
at different levels or ages, and compared with one 
another, would demonstrate this gracious character of 
the higher social evolution. Even war itself, as it is 
rendered more costly to a nation's treasury, and more 
deadl}^ in its implements, becomes less fatal in its 
battles ; wars cost less life as civilization grows. The 
casualties were vastly greater in the ancient wars of 
the Assyrians, the Medes, and the Persians, than in 
modern battles. They were larger in mediaeval com- 
bats than in later campaigns. The}^ were greater pro- 
portionally even in our civil war than in more recent 
battles. In our time, moreover, the great world calls 
for only occasional heroic sacrifice, but it offers a mde 
field for daily service. Nature's first law is one of sac- 
rifice ; her last law of life is one of service. The sacri- 
fice of the Son of man, the supreme sacrifice of historj^, 
was atonement offered once for all: an apostle could 
find it needful only to fill up that which is lacking of 
the afflictions of Christ. And that is a diminishing 
need as the Spirit of Christ prevails. The summons for 
the martyrs ceases ; the opportunity for a life poured 
out in some single and splendid act of sacrifice becomes 
rare; but faithful lives of mutual service find their 
happy day in all Christian communities. Sacrifice, in 
short, may pass away ; but love abides forever. 

Still we must ask, Shall there remain for life in the 



RESTORATION IN EVOLUTION 227 

highest no more pain or death? Shall sacrifice pass 
entirely away, and the heavenly service only remain? 
Shall death itself at last be dispensed with as no longer 
needful for life and its perfect evolution? Before we 
are quite ready to give to this supreme question of our 
human destiny the fullest answer which may be derived 
from the study of evolution, we must turn once more to 
the facts, and inquire concerning another great construc- 
tive principle of nature. Then we may seek to combine 
all these lines of inquiry together in our rational and 
spiritual interpretation of the universe, amid the lights 
and shadows of which we now walk, and wonder, and 
believe and wait. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE PRINCZPIiE OF COZVIPLETION 

An eminent German botanist, Nageli, in the intro- 
duction to a book in whicb he summed up his investi- 
gations into the life of the plants, wrote of a principle 
of perfection which he had discovered in his studies of 
nature. Something running through the development 
of the plants and the flowers had impressed him with its 
all-pervasive and dominant presence ; and he character- 
ized it by this significant phrase, a principle of perfec- 
tion.^ After the habit of strict scientists he was careful 
to disclaim any metaphysical intentions in the use of a 
phrase so idealistic as that; he explained that he meant 
to characterize by means of it that progressive tendency 
which seems to be of the essence and movement of the 
whole living process of nature. Without adopting or 
discussing Nageli 's biological views, we may take his 
phrase as a happy designation of an impression which 
the all-around naturalist often receives from his studies. 
Nageli is not the only biologist who has dropped into 
the use of such significant expressions. The phrases, a 
tendency towards perfection, a progressive tendency, 
progressive development, and other words implying 
movement towards some end to be realized, frequently 

1 Mechanisch-pkyslologische Theorle der Abstammungslehre, s. 12. 

228 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 229 

creep almost unawares into strictly scientific essays, 
even where the best intentions exist of keeping out any 
confusing metaphysical ideas. ^ 

The impression of some formative and perfecting 
principle in nature is a suggestion which naturalists, 
who would see facts in their larger outlying relations, 
will not wish lightly to brush aside. It is nature's 
response to their own thought. It is one of those im- 
pressions which are received by the mind that looks into 
nature from the mind which is revealed through nature. 
Do you say, No, it may be only our mind seeing its own 
image in nature's glass? But how do you know that? 
How do you know that nature is a mirror, and not a 
revelation ? Evolution is thoroughly real, and leads us 
to believe in the realities of things. We have no 
knowledge to warrant us in saying that at the back of 
nature's glass is only so much foil, and that nature is 
but a deceptive mirror of our human face ; it is as scien- 
tific, it is truer rather to say. Any light we may see in 
nature is light shining through it. Nature is not a 
mirror of our consciousness, but a glass through which 

1 For instance, one of our American biologists, in describing certain 
processes of regeneration, remarked that " what we call correlation of the 
parts seems here to belong rather to the category of phenomena that we 
call intelligent than to pliysical or chemical processes as known in the physi- 
cal sciences. The action seems, however, to be intelligent only so far as 
concerns the internal relations of the parts, etc." But the next year he 
offers an apology for his having fallen into a metaphysical pitfall, and 
says that " it is true that at present we cannot explain them (these reac- 
tions) as the result of known chemical or physical properties of matter, 
but I do not think that therefore I was justified in calling them intelli- 
gent processes, even in the broadest use of the word, etc.," Morgan, T. H., 
Wood's Holl, Biol. Lectures, 1899, p. 204 ; and so he leaves his previous 
words without much intelligible meaning. 



230 THROUGH SCIEXCE TO FAITH 

we look out, and the eternal reality shines in. The 
background of the universe is not metallic foil, but spir- 
itual reality. 

The modern botanist, Xageli, was not the first to dis- 
cover a certain principle of perfection in nature. Long 
ago that great naturalist, as well as philosopher, Aris- 
totle, spoke of a perfecting principle in nature, record- 
ing in the phrase the impression which nature itself had 
made upon his keen observant mind. It is in some 
sense a return to Aristotle, when modern biology puts at 
the focus of our philosophy of life the question, How 
has nature taken form ? Plastic material, not inert sub- 
stance, has been worked up, and received shape and 
order and comeliness in evolution : what have been the 
formative forces or processes through which it has taken 
shape and been so far perfected ? 

In pursuing further this discussion, it is preferable to 
substitute for Nageli's phrase, the principle of perfection, 
this expression, the principle of completion ; partly be- 
cause the latter phrase avoids at the outset any moral 
implications, and also because it will be found to describe 
quite accurately the facts and tendencies which come 
under observation. 

At this point we must return to our previous reason- 
ings concerning the fact and character of direction in the 
nature-process ; but these will appear to us in this fur- 
ther consideration of them under a new aspect. Taken 
in connection with what has also been observed concern- 
ing the process of individualization, the whole matter 
will begin now to open towards the prospect of some 
completion for our all too broken human life. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 231 

It is not necessary to repeat, but we should now keep 
in mind, the successive facts and interpretations which 
have already occupied our attention; for they constitute 
the broad basis for further argument. We shall seek to 
bring out their bearing in particular upon the possible 
completion of life. 

The evidence of a persistent tendency towards comple- 
tion in nature lies broadly and largely before us in the 
fact of the progressive adaptation of life. So eminent a 
biological authority as Oscar Hertwig holds it to be 
scientifically true to apply this expression, the principle 
of progression, to the development of nature as a 
whole. ''The most remarkable example," he saj^s, "of 
a progressive process of development is to be found in 
every ontogeny (the individual development) from the 
Qgg. For every stage of it is the preparation for the 
following, and the process goes on towards its realization 
unceasingly, so far as the outward conditions also . . . 
exist. Even slight disturbances from without cannot 
stay the process in its progression, as there are various 
means of overcoming and equalizing them, so that the 
course of development is constantly brought back to the 
goal fore -designated by its nature, and it presses towards 
its ordered goal." So Hertwig would regard, likewise, 
the natural historical method of evolution in general as 
in a similar manner a constant and orderly progression, 
not as a play of accidents, but as possessing the same 
inner necessity as the ontogenesis of the Qgg-^ Simi- 

1 Die Zdle und die Gewehe, p. 278. Similarly, another eminent Ger- 
man investigator, Driesch, has been led by his studies of ontogenetic and 
reparative processes to modify his earlier" machine theory" of vital 



232 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

larly an American authority, Professor Wilson, in 
speaking of different forms of cleavage which are to be 
observed in the development of the Qgg^ says: "We 
cannot comprehend the forms of cleavage without refer- 
ence to the end-result. " ^ That remark holds true all 
through nature. We cannot comprehend what is to be 
seen at any cross-section of natural processes without 
reference to the end-result. At no period does life 
appear like a little boat adrift aimlessly on the vast 
ocean of existence. It is never a derelict. However 
buffeted and tossed about, it is always moving and strug- 
gling on towards an " end-result. " 

This teleological character of the nature process as a 
whole — its habitual way, that is, of working towards 
ends — impresses itself upon a thoughtful observation in 
many ways. We realize it when we reflect how often 
the same material has been worked over by nature, and 
worked up into better forms. For the same atomic 
matter on this earth has been worked over and over 
with ceaseless thrift, and the utmost has been made of 
it, in the history of plant and animal life. Adaptation 
after adaptation is introduced, form after form is 
selected, naturally happy hits, if you please, are seized 
upon and used for still further advantage, all in the 

action. He now recognizes a special laAv of vital procedure {" eigenthiim- 
liche Gescheliensgesetzlichkeit "), which is not subordinated to, but 
co-ordinated with, the causal forms of connection in the inorganic world. 
Arch.f. Entw-Mech., Bd. viii. s. 35. O. Hertwig in a recent address, Die 
Entwickhmg der Biologic im 19. Jahrhundert, reasserts with even more 
distinctness the views to which we have referred. Per contra, see 
0. Biitschli, Mechanismus und Vitalismus (1901). The notes contain 
references to recent utterances on this question by German authorities. 
1 The Cell, ^.^11. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 233 

ceaseless effort apparently to make the most and the 
best of the matter of life. The same particles may have 
been used in the meshes of a vegetable mould, in the 
single vaguely sensitive cell of a protozoan, in the more 
organized body of a mollusk, in the warm blood of a 
bird of the air, in the brain of a statesman, in the heart 
of a saint. Nature v^ill do her utmost with the material 
given to her hand. And nature's utmost is nature's 
best. Never weary in doing good, fainting not along 
life's long way, pressing on towards the goal, nature 
strives to apprehend that for which also she is appre- 
hended. Nature, give her time, will fulfil her whole 
law of perfection. 

This same impressive conduct of nature, as of an 
intelligent working toward completion, appears not 
only in the large, but also in particular instances of her 
progressive adaptations, as when we survey the round- 
ing out of individual life-histories into completed circles; 
— ^if we consider, for example, her procedure in the 
course of the lives of certain animals which pass 
through successive and seemingly disconnected stages, 
but which complete a perfect circle in their develop- 
ment. We may select as an example Mr. Morgan's 
account of the interesting and singular career of the 
Yucca moth. This silvery insect emerges from its 
chrysalis -case "just when the large yellowish-white 
bell-shaped flowers of the Yucca open, each for a single 
night." The female moth gathers the golden pollen 
from the anthers of one of these flowers, and kneads it 
into a little pellet. Laden with it and holding it, shall 
we say, carefully, she flies off and seeks another flower. 



234 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

Finding it, "she pierces with the sharp lancets of her 
ovipositor the tissue of the pistil, lays her eggs among 
the ovules, and then, darting to the top of the stigma, 
stuffs the fertilizing pellet of pollen into its funnel- 
shaped opening." The visits of the moth are necessary 
to the flower; else it would remain unfertilized. And 
the fertilization of the ovules of the flower is necessary 
also to the larvae of the moth ; for they feed exclusively 
on the developing ovules. " Each grub consumes some 
twenty ovules, and there may be three or four such 
grubs," while the ovary may contain " some two hundred 
ovules."^ So they both get along together very welL 
The plant makes a partial sacrifice of its seed to the 
moth, and the moth brings the means of fertilization to 
the Yucca flower. The moth performs all this wonderful 
adaptation but once in her life ; her offspring she never 
sees and cannot know. She has no means of understand- 
ing the effect of what she does either upon the plant or 
for her eggs. Yet to this good purpose she toils, and to 
this end nature blesses her work. Here certainly is a 
wonderful sequence of activities and adaptations, and 
through this whole series nature works for definite 
end-results. By this combination of elements of plant 
life and activities of animal life, nature secures the 
benefit of both. There is to be seen here a co-ordination 
of many factors for results ; and these results are them- 
selves also part of the general movement and process of 
life's perfecting. In this instance — and many similar 
ones can be given — one might miss entirely the connec- 
tion, and fail to trace the self-completing life-history, 

1 See Lloyd Morgan, Habit and Instinct, p. 14. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 235 

had not the whole series of nature been observed. It is 
an instance to show how nature fulfils herself in many 
ways. With a whole completed life-history before us 
we can perceive a truth of large suggestive import, — 
how things which seem strange and unaccountable when 
seen separately and regarded only in relation to a limited 
period of the life-history, are explicable and fall into a 
good whole, when seen in their relations to other parts 
and as moments of one well-ordered process. Each act 
and instinct of the Yucca moth, as well as each arrange- 
ment of the Yucca flower likewise, is sign of that all- 
pervasive tendency towards completion, in virtue of 
which we may be assured nature everywhere will finish 
what it has begun. You do not understand what 
mother-nature may be doing at any moment? Watch 
her long enough, and you shall know. 

This general fact of progressive development dis- 
closes, when we look at it more carefully, two distinct 
features ; it is a progressive development both of form 
and function. Life takes on better form, and it thereby 
fulfils its functions better. Or, in a word, life shapes 
itself better for better work. These two, form and 
function, go together in nature, and each seems to help 
on the growth of the other. 

The swimming bladder, for instance, of a fish develops 
into a lung ; and the lung, when it is formed, discharges 
better the function of breathing the air. It is an old 
biological question which is first, — whether an organ is 
first formed for use, or whetlier the use develops the 
organ. Sometimes forms seem to arise in anticipation 
of some future use. But certainly through the improve- 



236 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

ment of structure, and the demand upon an organism 
for better adaptation, life goes on towards perfection. 
A remark of Mr. Ward's aptly hits this characteristic of 
evolution : " It has sought not only to live, but to live 
well." 

The fact of this mutually dependent development of 
progressive form and better adaptation for organic func- 
tions, appears even from a cursory view of evolution. 
Indeed something of this twofold method of progress 
may have characterized inorganic nature. Astronomical 
physics has marked successive steps in the formation of 
the stars. And in the later evolution of the skies two 
distinct but related modes of formation have been dis- 
tinguished. One is the development of a ring of more 
or less nebulous matter ; the other is a division of stellar 
matter into comparatively equal bodies.^ But as stellar 
form has thus been gained, the stars have become more 
fit for use. The hottest, less developed stars cannot 
shelter any life such as exists on the earth. The more 
developed worlds may become fit for the abode of life. 
We know one world at least which has been so formed 
and developed that upon its surface, and for a few thou- 
sand feet above its valleys, it can shelter and nourish 
something of vital worth, and draw to itself influences 
from all the stars in its ministering to life. The forms 
of the stellar universe have become fitted at this earth- 
point at least to discharge this function of sustaining 
animated existence. We do not know for what func- 
tions for other intelligencies the heavens may have been 
developed at other shining points : we do know how ages 

1 See Popular Science Monthly, Dec, 1897, vol. 52, pp. 175-176. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 237 

of inorganic evolution have fitted this earth to be as the 
garden of life. Now observe particularly that this stellar 
formation, and this evolution of a world fitted for vital 
uses, has been progressive and adaptive. It has not been 
a succession of dissolving forms ; it has been one move- 
ment on through a series of connected forms. The 
great heavens have not been as a theatre for the display 
of changing pictures, but for the evolution of a drama. 
The history of the inorganic kingdom has not been like 
a succession of waves, now rising, now falling, always 
restless, never advancing; it is rather like an increasing 
number of steps, when each point gained becomes the 
point of departure for another step in the same direction. 
However mechanically wrought and mathematically 
intelligible this astronomic evolution may prove to be, 
in its fundamental and constant character it has one 
meaning and worth, — it is a formation for use ; it is a 
movement which ends in service for life. As such it is 
an evolution which gains as its issue something of 
higher value than itself. In its use for life it reaches 
an end, and an end which is worth all the astronomic 
ages of star-formation. 

This same impressive character, which the heavens 
declare to the modern astronomer, of progressive move- 
ment and adaptation for further use — of form fitted for 
service — may likewise be traced in the geological his- 
tory of the world which has been made for us. A geol- 
ogist. Professor Shaler, may best interpret for us this 
aspect of the history of the earth: " We should also see 
that the greatest work of the earth, from ancient ages, 
has been to afford the place on which, as on a theatre, 



238 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

this life has played its part. We find the most wonder- 
ful proof of the earth's perfection in the fact that for a 
time, so long that our imaginations are too weak to 
consider it, it has been so well ordered that no convul- 
sions have prevented the animals and plants from stead- 
ily going forward in their development. Ten miles 
beneath the surface, there is a heat so great that no life 
could bear it ; ten miles above, a cold so intense that, if 
it should come to the earth, nearly all created things 
would immediately die. Yet for ages the balance has 
been so preserved, and the temperature of the earth has 
remained so near what it is at present, that these sensi- 
tive living creatures have not been killed, but have 
prospered from age to age."^ 

The persistent working of evolution towards comple- 
tion appears further when we take a general bird's eye 
view, as it were, of the course of development by means 
of which organic form has been fitted for the largest 
reception and use of intelligence. On the surface of it, 
from a general glance over the course of it, it appears 
that from the outset nature's problem has been how to 
reach a form of life best fitted for the habitation and 
service of mind. Her great structural lines point in 
that direction. Her repeated and renewed attempts all 
lie in that direction. The successive types of the 
animal kingdom show increasing adaptation to brains 
and their function. A mollusk is formed but soon left 
behind, for there is no progress further towards brains 
to be made by protecting an organism with a ponderous 
shell. A worm is tried again, and muscles are laid on 

1 First Book in Geology, p. 147. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 239 

transversely and longitudinally. Some gain in the way 
towards brains is made next among the annelids and 
articulates, when more power of locomotion and some 
beginning of sense-organs are won; when life rises a 
grade higher than the worm in articulates which acquire 
a head and legs. In the insects that way is carried as 
far as their size permits. Nature takes up next the ner- 
vous system, develops backbone, and gains larger space 
in the animal for brains.^ Intelligence becomes eventu- 
ally the leading line of evolution. And it is a question 
which the zoologists have fairly opened up, but which 
they have not as yet thoroughly investigated, how far 
animal intelligence, after a certain amount of it was 
gained, entered itself as a direct factor into evolution, 
by its presence and influence shaping its course and 
uplifting it to higher aim. Mind once gained in evolu- 
tion becomes henceforth a factor of evolution. It may 
even seize upon and direct natural selection, exercising 
as it were from within nature an artificial selection as 
it brings itself more and more to dominance. But pass- 
ing this, the immediate point is that through successive 
types, and on progressive lines, nature has worked out 
and solved the problem of building a structure which 
is in the highest degree fitted for intelligence. " The 
naturalist," as one of them remarks, "cannot believe 
that man was a mere accident; he is rather the being 
to which the world in all its efforts was constantly 

1 According to Professor Brooks fossils show that amoug terrestrial 
auimals, since the Middle Tertiary, the size of their brains has increased 
over one hundred per cent ; the brain of the modern mammal is more than 
twice as large, compared with its body, as the brain of its ancestors in 
that geological period. See Foundations of Zoology, p. 217. 



240 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tending/'^ This fact that there has been a tendency 
towards completion in nature appears with irresistible 
force when we follow up through the long ages what 
has been called the "organic approach to man." It is 
a long chain of organic events, generations linked to 
generations, yet it has not been broken, and not a link 
needed for its completion has been missing. Zoologists 
have not indeed found every missing link, but they 
have laid hands on links enough to be sure of the 
chain. One hardly knows how to j^ut into words the 
impression of some determinate connection and of some 
ceaseless movement towards an end-result, which is 
made by the attempt to reproduce with scientific imagi- 
nation this swift yet ceaseless procession of organic 
forms, this innumerable succession of generations, this 
steady march and approach, w^hich will not be diverted, 
of the powers of life on and on, and up and still higher, 
until the kingdom is come, and Man reigns, and life 
has become love and worship. It is sober truth and 
science which Browning utters in Paracelsus^ — 

" All tended to mankind, 
And, man produced, all has its end thus far : 
But in completed man begins anew 
A tendency to God. Prognostics told 
Man's near approach ; so in man's seK arise 
August anticipations, symbols, types, 
Of a dim splendor ever on before 
In that eternal circle run by life." 

Our argument may be interrupted here by the ques- 
tion whether there are not some evolutionary theories 

1 Shaler, ihid., p. 188. Prof. J. M. Tyler has fully developed this 
argument in his book on The Whence and the Whither of Mart. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 241 

which may account for this apparent progress towards 
an intelligent end and final coronation of mind, with- 
out recourse to an idea of a goal, or anything resem- 
bling a thoughtful moral purpose in nature ? Certainly 
there are scientific theories which are competent to 
explain, with much probability, although still partially, 
the methods of this whole progressive course of nature. 
Let us turn, then, once more to the theories, and see 
how far they can be made to go.^ They may account 
for the manner in which the road has been made ; but 
not for the movement of nature up the way of life. 
They present for our understanding good summaries 
of nature's tactics; they do not com.prehend the grand 
strategy of the creation in the order of the heavens and 
the victories of life. True science, in its present more 
reverent mood, will have little patience with the flippant 
ease with which phrases like the survival of the fittest 
are popularly used, as though by words the worlds 
were made. 

The chief means of progressive evolution may still 
be described in general by Darwin's formula of natural 
selection. It is by no means certain, however, that 
Darwin's formula for the creation is comprehensive. 
Nature may have other arrows in her quiver, and more 
than one way of hitting her mark. We know as matter 
of fact that one way of her success in promoting life is 
to eliminate the unfit. Nature is repeatedly subjecting 
life to severe examinations, and the creatures who 
miserably fail of the test are left to perish. To some 
extent this method of evolution through natural selec- 

1 See p. 80. 
16 



242 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

tion may be said to have been experimentally verified. 
For example, on February 1, 1898, nature held an 
examination of blackbirds in the city of Providence, 
Rhode Island. The test was a severe snowstorm. One 
hundred and thirty -six birds, that had apparently 
succumbed to the icv blast, were broug-ht into the labo- 
ratorj^ of Brown University, and the attempt was made 
to revive them. Sixtj'-four of these bu-ds perished; 
seventy-two revived. It was found by careful measure- 
ments that there was a reason in the structure of the birds 
for this survival difference. Natural selection, we are 
told, was most destructive of those birds which had de- 
parted most from the ideal type; those survived that 
came nearest the normal tj'pe. The best fitted birds 
passed the examination of the snowstorm ; those not so 
well prepared failed and perished. By such repeated 
examinations, moreover, the standard of excellence is 
kept up. Natural selection acts thus as a perfecting 
principle of life.-^ 

When all this has been granted, many questions 
remain. Are there other formative forces ? And par- 
ticularly what are the causes of useful variations ? The 
role of variation, as it shall be restudied and be better 
understood, may disclose to us much more than we 
have known of the ultimate character of natural evolu- 
tion. We must leave the biologists to work out further 
this complex problem of the formative methods of life. 
Some investigators find hints and suggestions of what 
they call Anti-Darwinian factors in evolution. It is gen- 
erally agreed that the problem is a vastly complex one. 

1 Wood's Hotly Biol. Lectures, 1898, p. 217. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 243 

One of the chief questions which biologists since Dar- 
win have been trying to solve, relates, as just sug- 
gested, to the causes of variation. Do variations occur 
in all possible directions, while natural selection prunes 
off the poorer ones and lets only the fittest grow ? Or 
do some variations regularly recur in definite directions 
with accumulating results? If the latter be the case, 
and an organism may evince an inherent tendency to 
pursue some definite and advantageous line of growth, 
then some other force besides the action of natural 
selection must be found as a true cause of evolution. 
The question also is now raised whether natural selec- 
tion has worked, as Darwin assumed, through numer- 
ous slight, scarcely perceptible variations, during a long 
period of time, or whether sudden, single variations 
have been seized upon and held fast as the means of 
forming new species.^ Professor Conn seems to state 
correctly the drift of opinion among American natural- 
ists especially, when he says, " Now it has been a grow- 
ing conviction of the last ten years that variations are 
not simply haphazard, but are determinate. This has 

1 Mr. Bateson's work on Materials for the Study of Variation has opened 
a fresh field for research in this direction ; he finds evidence for discon- 
tinuous variation. One of the latest modifications of Darvi'in's theory is 
proposed by the botanist, Hugo de Vries, in his recently published vol- 
umes on Die Mutationstheorie. In liis view sudden, single variations, 
rather than slight individual variations, produce new species, and in 
some instances in a few generations. Evolution in this conception of it 
would not resemble an ascending plane, but rather a flight of stairs, — 
a new species represents not so much an accumulation of imperceptible 
differences, but a new step of nature. These mutations are still under 
the law of natural selection. But this whole field is open for investiga- 
tion, and in botany rather than in zoology the causes of variation now at 
work may best be studied. 



244 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

been recognized by many naturalists working in differ- 
ent lines. It has been variously called ' conscious 
force,' ' self-development,' ' directive tendency,' 'deter- 
minate variation,' but in all cases it is tlie recognition 
of some force at work prior to selection, which controls 
variation in some way."^ The palseontologists seem to 
be especially impressed with the fact, which their study 
of the geological succession of animals emphasizes, that 
the " development of types progresses steadily onward in 
a given line." They find "ever a constant progress 
apparently toward a definite goal. After a group of 
animals starts on a certain line of development, it fol- 
lows it with unmistakable directness. What is more 
significant is the fact that many kindred groups follow 
the same line."^ This is a present biological task to 
settle the question by new studies of nature, whether 
natural selection is sufficient to explain the method of 
this progressive development along definite lines with a 
seemingly irresistible tendency, or whether we still need 
to learn much more of the way in which nature has 
managed to press on as toward a goal. It may be that 
the answer to this problem will be found to transcend 
pure biology, and that the final explanation of progres- 
sive evolution must come from the spiritual side of the 
universe. If we would fill such phrases as internal 
growth-force, or a perfecting or progressive principle, 
with real meaning ; if we may gain more than a merely 
verbal explanation of the fact of progressive evolution 

1 Method of Evolution, p. 364, 

2 Opus cit.y p, 365, Among palaeontologists Prof, E. D. Cope has 
argued vigorously that evolution follows definite lines of direction. See 
his Primary Factors of Organic Evolution, and Origin of the Fittest. 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 245 

towards definite ends, we must sooner or later put 
spiritual meanings into biological phrases. Whatever 
the way or means of it, the fact of determinate variation, 
for its ultimate account of itself, suggests intelligent 
co-ordination and direction. The more our biology can 
find out concerning the mechanism of it all, the better; 
for when the mechanics of the universe shall be known 
no more in part, bufc fully, we shall be in the best 
possible position to understand the necessary place and 
function of divine Intelligence in it. If we can ever 
run our scientific tunnel far enough through things, we 
shall probably come out into the same light of life from 
which we start. Think a little, and you may find your- 
self in the dark and the damp. Think long enough and 
deeply enough, and you may think yourself through, out 
into the divine sunshine. 

In this connection we would note the fact that Mr. 
Wallace, who with Mr. Darwin discovered the role of 
natural selection, and who is disposed to assign to it 
the leading part in the drama of life, nevertheless has 
marked some features in man's development, physical 
as well as mental, which he says he cannot account for 
solely on the principle of natural selection. He sug- 
gests that in man's development a higher Intelligence 
may have guided its course, very much as we may arti- 
ficially direct natural selection in raising new varie- 
ties of plants or animals. Whereupon a French critic 
of Mr. Wallace upbraids him for regarding man as 
God's domestic animal. The critic, however, may have 
touched by that phrase a more vital truth than he 
knew. For it is conceivable that by a higher Intelli- 



246 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

gence natural selection may be guided to special ends. 
In that case a special providence would not be a viola- 
tion of natural law, anj^ more than the artificial selec- 
tion of the florist or the pigeon-breeder is a violation of 
natural law. It would only be a specific use of it by an 
Intelligence possessed of knowledge enough so to use 
it for his own good purpose. But more than this may 
be suggested to us by the phrase, which we need not 
altogether dislike, that man is God's domestic animal. 
It may still further and more profoundly be true that 
life in its higher forms, through natural selection if 
you please, acquires more and more power to be domes- 
ticated. It may gain wider range of variability and 
increased capacity to be guided and trained to some 
specific ends, if there be Intelligence so to befriend and 
improve it. The acquisition of mental and moral power 
to be domesticated by the God of all, may be itself one 
of the spiritual achievements of evolution. On the 
basis of the general providential direction of the whole 
nature-process there may be formed special aptitudes 
for definite workings of the Divine energy. If so, such 
special guidance of man's thoughts, or inspirations of 
his heart, would not be an intrusion into the natural 
course of life of something foreign to it, but rather an 
answer to its true prayer and a fulfilment of its natu- 
rally acquired capacity to be moved and guided and 
uplifted by the Spirit. Religion would be the supreme 
naturalism. A special providence would thus be a 
meeting and matching at the prepared point of the 
inward capacity and the outward, spiritual Power. If 
man be in deed and in truth God's domesticated animal, 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 247 

the old parable of the Master does not lose its force; 
for the Shepherd goes before the sheep, and the sheep 
know the Shepherd's voice. ^ 

At this point we pause to note both the agreement of 
our reasonings with biological science, and the diver- 
gence of our conclusion from some evolutionary philos- 
ophy. We have accepted from the start the first 
article of the scientific creed; viz., the genetic unity 
of the whole creation. Without hesitation we would 
regard man as belonging to the universe, and himself 
included in its development. His life is possessed not 
of less, but of more value, when we consider what it 
has cost. All the world has been given to enable him 
to have a soul ; shall he then give his soul in exchange 
for the whole world? But our interpretation of the 
nature-process as a whole, and its end-result, differs 
totally from tliat evolutionary philosophy which can 
discover in it only movement without aim, and change 
without progress. A German physiologist, from whom 
we may learn much as to the facts of evolution (Ver- 
worn), would lightly waive the idea of an advance and 
hence of a goal in nature. He remarks : " The concep- 
tion of advance, of perfecting, involves a goal toward 
which the advance is directed. Without this it is an 
empty conception. "2 That is truly said. To perceive 
a fact of progression through a series of forms, and to 
deny the idea of a goal, is to empty the process of its 
meaning. That is precisely our position, that our entire 

■^ At this place in the naturalist's view room would be opened for the 
Christian doctrine of prayer and its answer. 
2 Gen.Phys. p. 318. 



248 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

knowledge of the nature-process is rendered vacant of 
intelligible meaning, if it is emptied of the idea of a 
goal. Professor Verworn, however, after noticing the 
necessity of the process of organic development, con- 
tinues in this strain: "The employment, therefore, of 
the idea of advance or perfecting is evidence merely of 
an anthropocentric standpoint: we introduce ourselves 
into the development as the goal." Yes; but the fact 
is we do not introduce ourselves ; nature has introduced 
us into the development as a goal. Here we are. And 
we are here sufficiently evolved to need considerable ex- 
planation. We are here to know ourselves, and to inter- 
pret nature. If at the end of a long tramp through the 
wild forest, after following the trail all day long, you 
come out to a clearing, and find a good camp and supper, 
and companionship of men, you have a right to infer 
that the tote -road which you had followed must have 
had some reference to the logger's camp and fire as its 
end. Nature herself, as the end-result of her own pro- 
cess, has brought us to an anthropocentric standpoint. 
But Verworn continues : " The goal is an artificial thing 
which does not exist in nature ; the assumption that man- 
kind is more perfect than an amoeba is not justified by 
reality." We may observe that it is justified on our 
scale of vital values ; and that scale corresponds to the 
reality. Evolution has brought life up to a point of 
organized life and happiness where we naturally assume 
that a man is of more value than an amoeba. That man 
would be far too modest who should waive this human 
claim. In fact this philosopher does not so easily escape 
himself from the anthropocentric standpoint. For he 



THE PRINCIPLE OF COMPLETION 249 

puts an interpretation of his own upon nature's facts, 
when he empties evolution of the idea of a goal. That 
is an assertion which he brings to nature. Nature cer- 
tainly suggests another interpretation. Which is the 
best idea of her processes ? We certainly do not know 
enough to exclude the naturally suggested idea of an 
end or goal of the progressive evolution of the world. 
It is sheer presumption to deny it. For the nature- 
process at least goes on just as it might have gone on, if 
there is a goal towards which all things move. So, 
and not otherwise, nature could proceed ; in this way of 
natural selection as an excellent, and possibly as the best 
way, nature might go on to perfection, if it were from the 
beginning an ideal creation, and all its elements and laws 
had been thought out from the beginning to the end. 
If the Alpha and Omega be Spirit, the process between 
may be nature. The natural proceeds from the spiritual 
to the spiritual. It is intelligible only as a process of 
thought. We only make a needless riddle of natural 
law, if we say, evolution moves evidently towards an 
end, and with increasing determination; yet it has no 
end-result as a goal. Nature going on always without 
reason, would be forever something inexplicable to reason. 
We have acquired reason; we turn, and look back, and 
evolution seems rational. ^ "I know " — so man's self- 
consciousness finds its supreme expression in the 
absolute certainty of the Son of man — "whence I came 
and whither I go." 

1 See Ward, Agnosticism and Naturalism, ii. p. 24. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 

The French astronomer, Laplace, reduced the heavens 
to a series of mathematical demonstrations, and had 
no need of God in his hypothesis. The assertion has 
often been repeated by those who regard nature as an 
extended system of mechanics that a Laplacean cal- 
culator, if he had a sufficient mathematical knowledge of 
the universe at any one period of it, might predict 
truthfully its condition at any future age. From 
knowledge of a limited arc, it is said, the whole curve 
of time might be described. All that is lacking is an 
intelligence omniscient enough to make the calculation. 
The universe is thus supposed to be comprehensible as a 
mathematical equation ; all that is needed is an intelli- 
gence able to work out the equation. 

We will not press just now the argument that such 
mathematical pre-calculation of natural events is con- 
ceivable only because the world is rationally made; that 
the course of nature could be intelligently computed 
because it is intelligently constituted; and that conse- 
quently Laplace may have had more ultimate need of a 
God in his astronomy than he thought : but we cite this 
hypothesis for another purpose; it will serve to bring 
out the truth that in an orderly and intelligible world 

250 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 251 

the known parts and the observable tendencies of things 
may be enough to warrant some scientific forecast of 
coming conditions and of further fulfilments. The 
existing constitution of things has some predictive value. 
From what is, we may to some extent scientifically fore- 
cast what shall be. 

This is eminently true of nature's last order of the 
organic kingdom. Because it is an order, and because 
it is a developing order, it admits of rational forecast. 
From the known elements of the curve of our human 
life, some calculation of its further sweep may be made. 
The tendency towards completion which we follow 
within the bounds of experience, to some extent may be 
followed prophetically beyond the limits of present ex- 
perience. We may see in what direction it looks. We 
cannot drop, then, this principle of completion until 
we shall have considered not only what it means as a 
character of evolution, but also what it signifies pro- 
phetically for us. 

What is the outlook for our life from the point of 
view which our argument has now gained ? Regarding 
evolution as a progressive movement towards higher 
vital values, and having discovered that nature, in the 
co-working of all factors, and by every method, makes in 
time the utmost of her material, and will finish what 
she has begun, we are scientifically justified in raising 
the question of most personal concern for us, — Toward 
what further issues of life beyond life shall the whole 
age-long process work on ? If in seeking answer to this 
questioning we must look beyond observed facts, we 
shall sight, as it were, along the line of the known 



252 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

course of nature as we look away toward the world-age 
to come. 

The validity of this principle of prediction from our 
knowledge of the tendency of nature towards completion, 
will at once become clearly apparent, if we imagine our- 
selves to be observers who have taken their stand at 
some past period of time, in some earlier geologic age, 
and from that position have sought to predict the future 
development of the world. We can perceive how an 
observer so placed, if possessed of sufficient reasoning 
power, might read forward with much prophetic assur- 
ance lines of growth which we have now learned to read 
backward. The carboniferous age, if observed by such 
a studious eye, and interpreted in its relation to the 
preceding ages which had led up to it. might have dis- 
closed signs of preparation for a new heaven and a new 
earth, wherein the sun should shine through a sky 
cleared of vapors, and the dry land should teem with 
fairer life. Or suppose that to an intelligent observer 
in by-gone geological ages there had been shown some 
partly perfected organ, like the gills and lung-sacs of 
larval amphibian animals, or some half-formed audi- 
tory apparatus, or an unfinished eye. He would have 
had for the ground of his prophesying the earlier stages 
and successive steps up to that time in the history of 
these organs. He would have noticed their increasing 
adaptation to a half-disclosed outward element of air 
and light. He could have followed for some way 
onwards a seeming progress toward something yet to 
be revealed. From this history of partial yet definite 
development he might have predicted better things to 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 253 

come ; he might have been reasonably confident that in 
time a perfect organ of vision would be finished from 
a primitive eye-cup ; or that from rudimentary hearing, 
like that provided by the bell-like depression and clapper 
of a primitive ear, or the tuning-fork of an insect's 
antenna, in the course of the ages an ear for music 
might be formed. And such prophecy would have 
become more definite and sure in proportion as the 
development advanced, — as the lung-sacs became more 
obviously adapted to some life-giving element, or the 
ear more responsive to murmurings borne in from the 
outer air, or the eye more open to a world of color and 
of beauty. The principle, the sure principle of natural 
prophecy, is, that partially developed organs, and antic- 
ipatory adaptations to some waiting environment are 
destined to be fulfilled; that nature will not stop nor 
tarry till all her decrees of perfection shall be com- 
pleted. Prophecy has scientific claim when it essays to 
carry out any great vital principle into fulfilments of it 
beyond our present experience. Such prophecy is first 
a perception of that which lies vital and germinant in 
the existing world-order; — ^ it is first insight, and then 
foresight. The future age is not to be looked for as 
something which shall come unheralded and with vio- 
lence from without the existing order of the world. 
There may be divine surprise in its glory ; conditions of 
life beyond imagination may come as in a moment; but 
the reality of the hereafter shall be the continuation to 
perfection of the main lines, and of the essential, vital 
worths of our present life. Hence our science of life, 
so far as it may give to us deeper insight into the per- 



254 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

manent wants and the constructive principles of the 
present order, may open for us larger, truer prophetic 
vision. In this way biology also may be found among 
the prophets. And our expectation for the future of 
life on this earth, and beyond that, our hope for the 
satisfaction of our personal life in some happier envi- 
ronment hereafter, to which all our spiritual powers 
shall be fully grown, and perfectly responsive, — this 
grand prophetic trust of our human hearts lies deeply 
inwrought with this truth that nature can be trusted to 
keep forever her word of life. She can be trusted to 
keep her promise of life beyond our sight. The prin- 
ciple of completion will not break down, nor its natural 
strength be abated, until our human life likewise shall 
be carried, from the depths of its organic needs, and in 
the loftiness of its aspirations, to its perfection in the 
world to come. 

Cherishing this clear faith that nature's tendency 
towards completion will not fail us, as it has not failed 
the life before us, we may now use it, therefore, with some 
scientific confidence as a principle of predictive value. 

We may confidently make, to begin with, one of the 
most obvious predictions from this principle; viz., that 
useful variations will be carried forward to supremacy. 
It is the known habit of nature to seize upon and make 
the most of useful varieties. We may expect disad- 
vantageous variations to disappear in time from the life 
of humanity. The current of human life and history 
will clear itself, if further moral corruption be prevented. 
The natural prophets of life are all optimists — ulti- 
mate optimists, we mean. 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 255 

Moreover, we have reason scientifically to expect 
further and happier adaptations of life and environment, 
although within limits and through transformations 
which we shall presently consider. We may count with 
confidence upon the fulfilment of vital possibilities. 
The process of making the most of living material has 
been brought in the history of life so far, and with such 
persistency, that we may reasonably conclude it will not 
stop nor be stayed until the utmost that can still be 
made from the natural material shall have been worked 
out. These anticipations involve the meeting and har- 
monizing of inner and outward factors and elements, and 
the satisfaction in such concord of organic wants. 
Hunger in nature is always something prophetic. 
What life begins to need, to feel from within that it 
must find, shall eventually be supplied from without. 
And the completed outward conditions will awaken full 
response from within. The two meet and eventually 
are matched. The finished eye opens in the perfect 
light. The process of development through the ages is 
an evolution of the environment as well as of the life ; 
the end shall be the best possible in the harmony of 
the two. 

On the last height of nature's ascent appears the 
unfinished life of man. What is its prophetic value? 

Man marks the culmination of evolution so far as it 
has been revealed within the limits of visible nature. 
The lines of evolution converge all upon him. Its nat- 
ural prophecies find in him their promised Messiah : — • 
but what does he signify? What does he in his pres- 



256 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

ent incompleteness mean? Is his coming the end of 
the old, or is it also the beginning of a new dispensa- 
tion? Through his earthly life may we look forward 
still, or is there nothing bej-ond, and has all been ful- 
filled? Is there conceivable a second coming of Man? 

In certain directions nature seems to have come to an 
end, or nearly to an end, in man's physical organization. 
It is unnecessary to repeat what we have said in another 
connection (p. 180) of the apparent finality of the 
adaptations of atomic matter for the use of mind in man's 
body. A further confirmation of this view that physi- 
ological evolution has come to its climax in man, only 
minor modifications remaining possible, is afforded by 
the consideration that no great change has taken place 
in man's physical powers and aptitudes since in some far 
distant age he first appeared on the earth. Prehistoric 
man was physically of the same species as the present 
generation of men. He had, so Mr. Wallace assures 
us, as large a skull. His physical preparation was 
sufiiciently finished for tlie beginning of his mental 
growth. If man's development is to be pressed still fur- 
ther, and a body organized for him of still finer fitness 
for spiritual service, it would seem that some matter of 
life, still more ethereal, must be used for higher adapta- 
tion to the service of the spirit that is in man. We have 
no knowledge to warrant us in denying that such finer 
matter for life may not already exist waiting for man's 
better embodiment. We can perceive that further 
ascent, if there is to be such for him, must be won 
through some natural crisis, and by the appearing at the 
next critical point of some higher order of existence. 



PROPHET I C VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 257 

Continuous development for man's life may be reached, 
as before man continuous development has often been 
maintained, by an apparently sudden change of condi- 
tions, through another and the greatest of nature's 
transformation scenes. But there are limits in the 
present visible physical order for man's development; 
he must live up into a higher order, if he is to pass on. 

Suitable illustration of the final limits of one order 
of nature, and of progress beyond it by birth into 
conditions which transcend it, may be drawn from 
familiar fields. The evolution of our instruments of 
scientific research furnishes a helpful comparison. For 
example, the telescope has been developed nearly, if not 
quite, to the limits of clear, colorless definition which 
are fixed by the laws of light. If our knowledge of the 
number of the stars is to be carried farther than the eye 
of the telescope can pierce, we must invent a new in- 
strument adapted to some still higher power of our envi- 
ronment; and this our astronomers have found, for they 
have availed themselves of the actinic rays which lie in 
the spectrum above the visible rays, and the sensitive 
photographic plate, exposed to the skies, has disclosed 
the existence of stars beyond stars which no telescope 
can ever reveal. The evolution of scientific instru- 
ments for reading the language of the heavens came to 
an end in one direction, and reached the limit of possi- 
bility on one plane, and then it was begun anew on a 
different plane, and in the revelations of the new the 
glory of the old dispensation is surpassed. We are 
thinking that similarly, or in a waj* in which this may be 
an aid to our imagination, the spirit in man might be 

17 



258 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

supposed to receive a new instrument for its life, and one 
of higher power more sensitively adapted to the heavens, 
than is afforded by a body of molecular matter even in 
its perfection of adaptation in the human brain to our 
perception of the visible world. Something more refined 
than the exquisite nerve of sight, as an organ for man's 
knowledge, must be prepared for us, to disclose the glory 
of the heavens which are now unseen. We must be still 
more spiritually organized to see God and live. 

There is a principle of completion in nature, and as it 
is applied to our life it signifies that we also shall be 
made perfect. As we follow it out, and, with a confidence 
in it increasing with our knowledge of its thorough- 
ness as a natural principle, apply it to our life and its 
fulfilment, we ask in what further ways may we look 
for our human evolution ? how shall unfinished nature 
in us also be made perfect and entire ? We have come 
to the seeming end of one whole physiological order of 
development, yet only to a beginning of our inner life 
of power and love ; — it were unnatural, should the 
process stop, — what shall the end be ? 

There is one direction which we have thus far only 
generally considered, in which the higher evolution of 
man is conceivable, — that is the further advantageous 
development of his environment. Let us examine this 
possibility, therefore, more particularly. 

Evolutionary writers have repeatedly noticed the 
striking change which evolution has undergone in the 
age of man, as the emphasis of it has been transferred 
from man to his environment. Human development has 
been very largely a development of environment. 



PROPHETIC VALUE OE UNFINISHED NATURE 259 

Human history has been a betterment of man's condi- 
tions and a vast multiplication of the means of his life. 
Our environment is not merely a physical one, and its 
improvement has not consisted simply in better habita- 
tions, fitter food, more sanitary conditions, and greater 
command of the elemental forces of nature. Our human 
environment is also social, intellectual, moral. We 
possess in it what is called the increment of tradition. 
The words which a child now learns are 

" Words that have drawn transcendent meanings up 
From the best passion of all bygone time." 

Historic soil is rich. In further improvement of our 
environment, therefore, we may hope for happier devel- 
opment of humanity. Looking on in this direction, our 
philanthropists give, our educators toil, our statesmen 
build, our thinkers lead, and our socialists dream. So 
when the social environment shall be best fitted to man's 
individual life, men say the kingdom of heaven will 
have come on the earth. But even thus will it so come 
as it is in heaven ? 

Let us suppose that evolution, which has already 
neared its end in the physiological life of man, shall 
have entered upon a happier era in man's social condi- 
tion; would that be the end of the vista of life's 
promise? Would that close the book of the prophecy 
of life's age-long tendency towards completion? 

We must here take account of some lines of develop- 
ment which would not be finished, and some human 
wants of vital essentiality which would be left unsatis- 
fied, even if such social perfection should come at some 
future age upon the earth. 



260 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

One of these unfinished lines of life, which on the 
scientific principle of progressive completion we may 
hope with a vital trust to see sometime continued unto 
perfection, is the relation of the spirit within us to its 
outward element. Eternal life involves in its scientific 
idea perfect adaptation to perfect environment. The 
full conception of life's completion can be realized only 
in the achievement on the one side of real spiritual 
freedom — a spiritual character made safe forever in its 
moi'al integrity: and, on the other hand, in the fitness for 
it of some environment corresponding fully to its being, 
as the air answers to the life for its breath, or the 
light answers to the eye for its vision. This is the 
scientific idea of perfect life, if life in us is ever to reach 
forward to perfection. It is the full and final harmony 
of the spirit which is in man with the revealed presence 
of God in all the universe without. It is the whole 
truth of that one deep word of the Master: To know 
God is eternal life. To be a being who can know, 
and to be in relation to the divine, which is knowing, 
— that is full, harmonized life, — the eternal kind of 
life. 

Man's unfinished life in its present spiritual being 
and knowing is nature's present prophecy of this con- 
summation of it. We have this true life as yet only 
in its rudiments. We possess our immortality now, 
but only in its prophetic beginnings. Reflect how far, 
of all the children of nature, man still is from happy 
adjustment to his native air and element. He is not 
yet spiritual master of the universe in which he was 
born to reign. Its forces mock him ; its elements over- 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 261 

master him ; a microbe may rob him of his strength ; a 
single cell, living for itself in his bodily tissues, may 
quickly destroy him. Only a thin crust of one of the 
least of the heavenly bodies offers him shelter, and he has 
not yet received the freedom of the skies. His intellect 
transcends the bounds of his narrow abode, but the stars 
are more than he can number ; and the dust of his own 
little earth hides from his science its elemental secrets. 
He must serve the outward powers which he is con- 
scious that he was born to rule. The age of the spiiit 
is not yet come, it is only coming, in the reign of 
man. Every new art acquired, every scientific lordship 
which is won over natural forces, every larger general- 
ization of his knowledge, evinces his natural supremacy 
of spirit, and is prophetic of his rightful sovereignty ; 
nevertheless, man in his present mastery over the 
visible universe is still only heir apparent, and not yet 
king enthroned. He stands not yet at the centre, and 
radiant, the visible universe made subject to him, — 
even as a Christian prophet saw an angel standing in 
the sun. Can lordship like that be expected under 
the limitations of man's immediate embodiment, and in 
his present imperfect relation to the material crea- 
tion ? Or shall his spirit enter into some freer and 
happier adjustment to environment more fitted to its 
nature, in order that its perfection of power may be 
realized ? 

There is nothing in our knowledge of nature to pre- 
clude the possibility of some more spiritual relation of 
mind to matter. We may say with the poet-philosopher 
Herder that embodiment is the end of all God's ways 



262 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

on earth ; but we liave no scientific reason to deny that 
this earthly embodiment may itself be but the beginning 
and prelude of some better embodiment in the heavens. 
Embodiment, as we know it, may itself be as the seed of 
a new order, the first stage in a new process of evolution, 
the open way towards a life which shall be made perfect 
in its spiritual touch and contact with the outward 
universe. Because death brings to an end the present 
and perhaps rudimentary form of embodiment, we are 
not scientifically or rationally justified in concluding 
that the process of embodiment for spiritual life has 
come to an end, or that it is not to be continued in 
some other and fairer growth and fruition. The final 
completion would be the self-conscious spirit in per- 
fect touch with the universe; and towards comple- 
tion the whole creation tends. This is the positive 
momentum of the argument from nature for our im- 
mortality, — towards completion our life also must 
tend. 

The naturalness of this expectation of future life in 
happier adaptation to material environment, or the open 
scientific way for the soul's immortal hope, may appear 
further when we reflect upon an aspect of evolution with 
which naturalists are often deeply impressed. We refer 
to the critical points which occur in the processes of 
nature, at which, without breach of continuity but with 
very slight modification in physical conditions, a vast 
change is brought about, and an entirely new series of 
actions in nature is effected. Evolution is continuous 
as energy, but it is not uniform in its effects. Crises 
occur when suddenly new qualities are taken on and 



1 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 263 

great transformations are accomplished. ^ Such critical 
changes in natural evolution are properly adduced as 
instances to show the larger possibilities of life than may 
now appear. A familiar yet ever wonderful example, 
often cited, is the entire change of conditions and the 
assumption of new qualities which take place in the 
history of a drop of water at different degrees of tem- 
perature. Nature certainly admits of wondrous trans- 
formations, which could not have been previously 
conceived, and now hardly could be believed, had they 
not been commonly witnessed. The law of the conserva- 
tion of energy does not exclude, rather it renders possible 
for our life also some great transformation. The connec- 
tion of soul with body, the dependence of the personal 
being with his inherited individuality upon the molecular 
matter of his body, is a very slight and easily changed 
connection; it is no fast and indissoluble bond. In its 
embryonic beginning it is all contained and conditioned 
in a mere dot of microscopic matter. The physiolog- 
ical connection of men from generation to generation is 
a merest thread of protoplasmic substance. It is almost 
too small for the microscope to render it perceptible. 
One thing which biology makes plain — and the plain- 
ness of it may awaken awe — is this fact that mind does 
not need for its birth and its coming to its inheritance, 
a whole body, a complete brain, a fully formed organ of 
sense, or so much as a single nerve ; a few microscopic 
threads of chromatin matter in the Qgg are enough. 
To dimensions so infinitesimal is the dependence of 

1 These points of apparently rapid transformation arc happily called by 
Cope " expression points." Primary Factors, etc., p. 25. 



264 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

personal individuality upon the physical world reduced 
in its origin. But death, like birth, is a critical point 
— another crisis in the continuous history of life. The 
little that we know of birth into the world does not 
warrant us in saying that death out of it cannot be a 
new birth into other and larger relations with the uni- 
verse. And what we do know of the slightness of the 
connection of personal life with matter at its birth, 
does justify us scientifically in affirming that the disso- 
lution of a body is not necessarily the destruction of all 
relation of the individual to the outward universe. The 
bridge for the open way of the soul, both at birth and 
death, may be laid from the foundations of the world, 
although it may not in either case be visible to our 
senses. Biology has no knowledge from which to bring 
a negative to life and its transmission either from be- 
fore birth or after death. It leaves the onward way of 
the soul clear. Such being the case, the positive argu- 
ment, which we have just adduced from nature's great, 
vital principle of completion, finds room and may be 
allowed free scope in our hope of immortality. 

Into the depths of this great truth of nature our own 
Whittier struck the roots of his fair, sweet faith in the 
Eternal Goodness, and from it grew the richness of his 
life's autumnal song: 

' ' And present gratitude 
Insures the future's good, 
And for the things I see 
I trust the things to be. 

" Parcel and part of all, 
I keep the festival, 
Fore-reach the good to be, 
And share the victory. 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 265 

" I feel the earth move sunward, 
I join the great march onward, 
And take, by faith, while living, 
My freehold of thanksgiving." 

To this trust in nature, from which springs sweetest 
faith, one other great triumphal principle of life adds 
its clear word of prophetic expectation. We appeal to 
nature's increasing estimate of individuality in compari- 
son with the species. You will recall the process of 
individuality which we may trace from far beginnings. 
Individuality we have seen to be one of nature's ends. 
The last word of organic development is the individual 
and his worth. The idea of the perfection of the indi- 
vidual person is involved, therefore, in any scientific 
conception of the completion of evolution. The per- 
fection of the individual person is an essential part of a 
fulfilment of life which can be scientifically conceived. 
For life would not be carried out to completion on one 
of its main lines, it would stop short and be turned 
back in one of its progressive and dominant principles, 
if individuality should be gained only to be lost, if the 
person should miserably perish, and only the species 
survive, only the life of humanity continue. The most 
significant, yet usually overlooked fact that, as evolu- 
tion proceeds, the interest of the individual in life be- 
comes greater, or as it may with equal truth be put, the 
interest of life in the individual becomes greater, is of 
supreme interpretative value, and it throws a flood of 
light along our future way. In man the individual has 
become paramount. His personality stands out against 
the sky as nature's supreme fact. Man, the individual, 



266 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

has acquired survival value. Lower down the indi- 
vidual was sacrificed to the species ; on the height the 
species exists also for the individual. Personal immor- 
tality is now and henceforth nature's conceivable best. 
And nature's best is nature's sure word of the coming 
life. Add then to trust in the principle of completion 
this consideration that nature's possible best is the 
individual possessed of immortal survival value, and the 
natural argument for the continuation of personal life 
through better adaptations to the outward universe be- 
comes rounded out and clear. The promise of life from 
the far past, and in the present unfinished world, nature 
will keep in the unknown future. Hence in their 
hunger and thirst for life our human hearts become their 
own true prophets, and our best human life is its own 
sure interpreter. We must learn our song from our 
life. The incompleteness which we so deeply know, the 
strange brokenness of so much human life and love, the 
utter unintelligibleness to our thought and feeling of 
our personal life, if it has no larger sweep, no fuller 
joy, no heavenly freedom, — all this present partialness 
of our truest and worthiest achievement is as one grand 
annunciation, ever growing clearer and fuller, of the 
life to come, if indeed we have ears to hear nature's one 
deepest truth in the voice and story of all unfinished life. 
The power of nature's continuance in well doing which 
the whole progressive revelation of evolution declares, 
shall not fail us in our hour of mortal change. This 
strong principle shall not prove a broken reed in the 
grasp of our human hope. The same Power whose 
word of life has been kept up to man's coming upon 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 267 

this earth, will not at last, and with sudden infidelity, 
break troth to our human heart. Surely mind has not 
been called forth to know, in order that after a 
moment's passing glance it might be tossed back into 
oblivion. The human heart has not been made simply 
that it might be broken. The scientific principle of 
prophecy from the world's hunger has proved thus far 
to be true to the history of life; and as it is true up to 
the hunger and thirst of man's spirit for the living God, 
we have no reason to suppose that it will at last turn 
false in our most essential life, and immortal need. 
Hunger, seemingly cruel at first, restless, importunate, 
eager — hunger, through which life nevertheless has been 
led far up — hunger, itself transformed and transfigured 
in man's soul, is crowned at last with a beatitude: 
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness, for they shall be filled. Upon this highest height 
of evolution and of history we behold our humanity 
transfigured, ascending, glorified in the Son of man. 
In him the life was light. Life had come in his knowl- 
edge of the Father to its full self -revelation. In Him life 
and immortality — the final immortality of life — were 
brought to light: for of Him disciples of old were saying, 
and of Him, in view of nature's prophecy of the com- 
pletion of life in the highest, it should be confessed: 
It was not possible that he should be holden of death : 
Thou wilt not give thy Holy One to see corruption. ^ 

There is another prominent aspect of this principle of 
completion, which has hardly been noticed in the whole 
literature of the subject, but which is clearly and strik- 

1 Acts ii. 24 ; xiii. 35. 



268 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

ingly presented in nature's own evolutionary argument 
for man's immortality. It is this: the will to live is 
a supreme achievement of evolution ; and the energy of 
man's will to live is to be taken into the account as a 
factor of his future evolution. The will to live is a 
product of evolution ; but when once it has been clearly 
and consciously gained in man's life, it enters as a 
distinct factor into the course of evolution, and hence- 
forth its possible working and results are to be consid- 
ered in any scientific forecast of futurity. We may 
trace the will to live from the first stirrings of animal 
existence. It is a primal motion, an original impulse, 
a natural instinct of life. It grows and gathers 
strength, until in the higher animals it becomes domi- 
nant, and renders subservient to itself the developed 
powers of muscle and sense, of attack and flight, of 
instinct and intelligence. In man this will to live be- 
comes a clear, spiritual flame, and in it everything for- 
eign to it is consumed, until it too seems quenched 
forever. But can a flame so spiritual be quenched ? 

It should be noted that the will to live not only 
resists hostile and destructive forces, but also it shows 
signs of constructive and adaptive power, b}' which it 
fashions new conditions to its use, and makes for itself 
more fitting environment. Man's strong will to live 
evinces its self -maintaining energy by marked reactions 
upon the physiological environment; the physician is 
aided by it; disease is held in abeyance by it; it seems 
at times to have power to put off death. Moreover, it 
manifests its higher spiritual energy as power to suffer 
and to strive, to think and study, to achieve and to 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 269 

love, without heed of time or fear of death. This 
deathless will to live is a force among the nature-forces, 
which may have more meaning for our future life than 
has been dreamed of in our philosophy. It often shines 
forth most brightly, and is most triumphal, in the very 
hour of death. If the strong immortal will to live of a 
thoughtful, noble man be not merely a self-assertive 
force, but also a creative energy of life, having power 
to adapt to itself other conditions and elements of being, 
although it must let this mortal body go ; then clearly 
immortality may be a possible achievement of the spirit 
which is in man, as well as the gift of God. If the 
adaptive and constructive will to live is in man the last 
and highest result of evolution so far, then its continu- 
ance and self -maintenance, in other and perhaps better 
conditions, would not be a thing incredible; it would 
be rather the natural completion of the will to live, 
which we should scientifically expect to see fulfilled, as 
we expect any other energy in evolution to be used to 
its utmost. 

The will to live, in which the fear of death is over- 
come, has shown its most forceful virtue in the supreme 
souls of human history. It was declared in Socrates' 
defiance of death; — you may kill Socrates, if you can 
catch Socrates. It has shone in the triumph of the 
martyrs ; it has sounded in the jubilance of the heroes ; 
it has lighted the faces of the saints. These go not 
down to death in passive resignation merely : they go 
up through death in active exercise of spiritual faith to 
greet the promise ; in dying they make death subject to 
them. In the consciousness of man at its highest 



270 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

power, even in the mind that was in Jesus, the spiritual 
will of life was constant, abounding, unconquerable. 
The Son of man would say to his friends, as one of us 
might say of any earthly purpose, naturally, and with- 
out shadow of doubt : I live ; — For as the Father hath 
life in himself, even so gave he to the Son to have life 
in himself : — I go to the Father : — I come again : — but 
now I come to thee: — I ascend unto my Father and 
your Father, unto my God and 3'our God. Thus the 
will to live as the Son of God, a will in itself invincible 
and divine, overcomes death, and cannot be held in 
corruption. ^ 

There is one feature of the natural ascent of life to 
personality, and its prophecy of completed life, which 
all along has been implied in the argument from unfin- 
ished nature, w^hich we should not leave without a word 
of explicit declaration. We have observed that the 
process of individualization in nature, which ends in 
distinct personality, does not leave the individual in 
separation from the world; it is rather the perfect adap- 
tation of life in self-consciousness to the universe with- 
out. Personality is not, we have remarked, fully 
conceived as a thing by itself; it exists in its relations 
to all around it. It rises indeed above nature, but 
never out of the great whole of the creation in which it 
has share and part. It is life in conscious oneness with 
the universe, — life at home in all the worlds. It is 
life possessing happy sense of its belonging to all around 
it, even as the son, and not as the serv^ant, in the 

1 For further consideration of this argument for immortality from the 
immortal will to live, see the author's Personal Creeds, Chap. vi. 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 271 

Father's house. Personality is itself more than a single 
isolated point of sensitiveness ; it is a social achievement 
and an entering into possession of all life; it can look 
abroad and up to the stars, and in its glad Christian 
self-consciousness sing to itself, — All things are yours ; 
whether human friends, or the world, or life, or death, 
or things present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and 
ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. ^ 

The prophecy of immortality, therefore, so far as we 
may read it from the evolution of individuality, is a 
promise likewise of social immortality. The eternal 
kind of life, even now as we enter anticipatively into 
its worth and joy, is communion of spirit. We pass 
into it and have it, as we share it with others, — the 
living and the dead. Only in communion with the uni- 
versal life is our individuality to be made full. We lose 
our self -life that we may gain it in fellowship with the 
Father and with the Son. The life, which is life in- 
deed, is fellowship with the human and the divine. 
Fellowship is life's last, greatest, and immortal word. 

The same principle of completion, therefore, which 
raises the scientific presumption of the future continu- 
ance of the individual life, justifies further the Christian 
faith that it shall be a life likewise of perfected touch 
and contact with the outward creation, and of supreme 
satisfaction in the comradeships of kindred spirits. 
Personal immortality, in a word, involves in its comple- 
tion social immortality. He in whom the life came to 
full revelation as the light of the world, describes its 
completion after a little while, not in material imagery, 

1 1 Cor. iii. 22. 



272 THROUGH SCIENCE TO FAITH 

or outward splendors, but in simple words of intimate 
personal relations and friendships: Ye shall see me 
again: I, thou, we, — all made perfect in one. Such is 
the possible social completion of man's life in the glory 
which the Son had from the beginning with the I ather, 
and which he prayed that the disciples might share with 
the Son, that all might be one. 

To follow this hope of social immortality in further 
Christian assurance of it, would lead us beyond the 
limits of the argument for eternal life from nature's 
present achievement and prophecy. But while natural 
theology can only lead us to the threshold, it leaves us 
before an open door, waiting for supernal revelation. 
We are not yet born into this larger world, but nature 
has formed and nourished us for its liberty. Man's 
life, still cherished in nature's womb, feels the stirrings 
within it of unknown powers, and has present embryonic 
consciousness of its immortal worth. First is that 
which is natural ; and afterwards — its sure fulfilment — 
is that which is spiritual. What things are prepared 
for us in some large, sunny realm, into which we shall 
be born again through death, and how in some fair har- 
mony with nature our spiritual life shall be made per- 
fect, — these things the heart of man cannot conceive : 
this is the Christian hope of the glorification of life in 
the resurrection. We know not what it shall be: but 
we know that it shall fulfil the law and the prophets of 
nature, while it shall transcend them all. 

There is a wonderful passage in a letter to the 
Romans of the chief of the apostles, in which there oc- 
curs an expression which could not have sprung from any 



PROPHETIC VALUE OF UNFINISHED NATURE 273 

of the literatures or philosophies of his age, but which 
witnesses to the new Christian conception of the crea- 
tion in its spiritual unity and hope. We may bring 
fresh meanings to it from our modern sciences, and use 
it as the summation, in a word, of the highest interpre- 
tation of nature which we may learn from our scientific 
studies of its origins, its struggle for existence, its in- 
creasing vital values, its entrance of death for the sake 
of life, its preparation of the way for the coming of the 
person and the glory of the Son of man, and from its 
unfinished life in its sure word of prophecy: with 
richer knowledge of evolution than Saint Paul could have 
dreamed to fill the words with luminous meanings, at 
the summit of the century's science we may lift up our 
hearts and confess : For the earnest expectation of the crea- 
tion waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For 
the creation was subjected to vanity^ not of its own will, 
hut hy reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the 
creation itself also shall he delivered from the bondage of 
corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children 
of God, 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Acquired characters, 205. 

JEsthetic sense, evolution of, 154. 

Agnostics, 52. 

Alcoholism, immunity from, 217. 

Algce, 139. 

Amceba, 21, 42, 62, 248. 

Andrews, Mrs. E. A., 72. 

Aristotle, 230. 

Ascaris, 32, 36, 69. 

Asclepiadce, 141. 

Atoms, dance of, 56. 

Augustine, St., 101. 

Bateson, W., 243. 

Beauty, criticism of utilitarian the- 
ory of, 138. 

Darwinian account of, 133, 

existence of, when not useful. 
141. 

for reason, 154, 158. 

interpretation of, 154. 

moral, 158. 

moral aspect of natural, 157. 

utilitarian theory of, 137. 
Biology, the higher, 8, 84. 

province of, 5. 

uncertainties of, 7. 
Birds, colors of, 135. 
Brooks, W. K., 101, 171, 230, 239. 
Browning, Robert, 240. 
Bunge, G., 167. 
Butler, Bishop, 1. 
Butschli, ()., 163, 232. 
Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, 62. 

Cell, contents of, 27, 31. 
co-ordination of, 71. 
discovery of, 13. 



division of, 33. 

germ and somatic, 36. 

individuation of, 1G5. 

nutrition of, 165, 

relative time in differentiations 
of, 74. 

structure of, 60. 
Chalmers, Thomas, 8. 
Chance, theory of, 54. 
Chemical Physiology, 1 66. 
Child, C. M., 73, 74, 75. 
Christian Science, 106, 209. 
Chromosomes, nature of, 33. 

number of, 69. 
Clavelina, 89. 
Color, autumnal, 140. 

elemental in nature, 148. 

in lower organisms, 139. 

organic, photographic sensi- 
tiveness to, 148. 

protective, 134. 

use of, in flowers, 137. 
Completion, evidence of principle 
of, 231. 

in man's life, 258. 

prophetic value of the prin- 
ciple of, 254. 
Conn, H. W., 243. 
Conservation of energy, law of, 13, 

263. 
Conservatism, of the germ, 205. 

of organisms, 207. 
Cope, E. D., 207, 244, 263. 
Courtship, natural history of, 135. 
Critical points, in evolution, 262. 
Crystal, appearance of, in evolution, 
163. 

compared with cell, 19, 163. 



278 



INDEX 



Cjtologx, 7, 28. 
Cymonomus, 197. 

Dan^te, 25, 53. 

Darwin, Charles, 2, 32, 79, 80, 134, 
135, 136, 137, 138, 145, 241, 
243, 245. 
Darwin, F., 15. 
Death, critical point in life, 264. 

for the sake of life, 199. 

relation to the fall, 199, 201. 

spirit, active in, 269. 
Descent of man, 2. 
Degeneracy, see retrogression. 
Development, embryological, 33. 

in inorganic world, 236. 
Direction, embryological, 68. 

character of, 95. 

fact of, to be known, 50. 

in the inorganic world, 53. 

in the organic world, 59. 

in history, 129. 

intelligent character of, 108. 

moral in nature, 116. 

summary of facts concerning, 
91. 
Driesch, H., 231. 
Drummond, Henry, 23, 24, 225. 

ECHINODERM, 72. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 185. 
Eimer, T., 149. 
Elements, evolution of, 161. 
Embryology, 68. 

recapitulation in, 40. 
Energy, conservation of, 13, 263. 

law of release of spiritual, 220. 
Environment, development of, 258. 

further adaptations of to man's 
life, 255. 
Eryonicus, 197. 
Eternal life, 260. 
Ether, the, 55. 
Evil, problem of, 129, 217. 
Englena, 14, 43. 

Evolution, arrest of in man's body, 
181. 



by atrophy, 197. 

change of order in, 57. 

factors of, 83. 

further possibility of for man, 
256. 

geological progression of, 56. 

intelligible as spiritual, 178. 

method of, 84. 

of man's environment, 258. 

of scientific instruments, 257. 

theories of, 79. 

unknown factor of. 111. 

use of the word, 4. 
Ewart, J. C, 83. 
Eye, evolution of, 41. 

increasing revelation to, 45. 

loss of, 197. 

Fall, evolutionary doctrine of the, 

201. 
Fertilization, of flowers, methods of, 

144. 
Fischel, A., 210. 
Fiske, John, 188. 
Fitness, significance of, 102. 
Foraminifera, 138. 
Form, development of for intelli- 
gence, 238. 

precedes variation, 91. 

progress of, 235. 

relation of to function, 235. 
Francis, Saint, 16. 
Fry, Mr. Justice, 143. 
Function, development of, 235. 

Gallon, F., 195. 
Goal, in nature, 247. 
Goethe, 49. 
Gray, Asa, 14, 147. 
Groos, K., 124. 

Haeckel, E., 11. 

Happiness, man's compared with 

animal, 119. 
Herder, J. G. von, 261. 
Hertwig, 0., 66, 83, 85, 112, 209, 

231, 232. 



INDEX 



279 



Higher criticism, of science, 8. 
Hunger, predictive value of, 267. 
Hydra, 66, 102, 208. 

Immortality, naturalness of, 262, 
266. 
personal, 265. 
social, 270. 
Individual, first step towards, 161. 
increase of value of, 187. 
perfection of, 265. 
survival value of, 190, 266. 
tendency towards, 160. 
worth of, as an end in itself, 
183, 189. 
Infancy, prolongation of, 188. 
Infusoria, 63, 87, 117, 126. 
Insects, eyes of, 145. 

sense of color, 145. 
Intelligence, increasing release of, 
220. 
animal, 168. 

directive action of, how con- 
ceivable, 110, 115. 
evolution of, 21 . 
evidence of, in natural direc- 
tion, 108. 
human related to animal, 22. 
Instinct, animal compared with hu- 
man, 183. 

Jennings, H. S., 88. 
Jones, E. G., 199. 
Joylessness, of lower organic world, 
126. 

Kant, 157. 
Kassowitz, M., 142. 
Kepler, 67. 

Labor, division of, 62. 

Lamarck, 82. 

Laplace, 250. 

Laws, not identical, 23. 

Le Conte J., 57. 

Lens, reproduction of, 210. 



Life, a new order, 57. 

communal in nature, 64. 

connection with inorganic, 16. 

dark side of, 120. 

duration of, 188. 

educable matter of, 18. 

mechanism of, 76. 

origin of, 17. 

physico-chemical theories of, 
77. 

waste of, f)re-natal, 122. 
Lillie, F. R., 76. 
Limitation, law of, 127. 

sign of, 105. 
Lockyer, N., 56, 102. 

Man, condition of further ascent 
of, 256. 

end of physiological evolution 
in, 256. 

oneness of with nature, 173. 

organic approach to, 240. 

unfinished life of, 255, 260. 
Marshall, Milnes, 40. 
Materialism, 75, 175. 
Matter, origin of, 55. 
Maxwell, J. Clerk, 96, 99, 113, 114, 

115. 
Mechanism, in biology, 85. 

iusufficiency of, 87. 

of cell-division, 214. 
Metabolism, 165. 
Metazoa, 64. 

Method, of this discussion, 5. 
Mihrogromia socialis, 63. 
Mind, advent of in nature, 172. 

directive energy in matter, 
109, 239. 

possible relation to matter, 261. 
Mohr, K. F., 13. 
Morgan, Lloyd, 21, 83, 221, 229, 

234. 
Morgan, T, H., 210, 229. 
Morris, J., 98, 176. 
Mozley, Canon, 157. 
Mutations-theory, 243. 
Myxomycetes, 63. 



280 



INDEX 



Nageli, 228, 230. 
Natural and spiritual, relation be- 
tween, 10. 

law in the spiritual world, 23. 
Natural selection, 80, 241. 

in man's development, 246. 

not first in nature, 90. 

insufficiency of, 80, 84, 138, 241. 

verification of, 242. 
Natural theology, the old and the 

new, 3. 
Nautilus, 44. 
N6mec, B., 15. 
Nemertea, 140. 
Neo-Darwinians, 206. 
Neo-Lamarckians, 82, 206. 
Newbigin, M. I., 148, 149. 
Newcomb, S., 111. 

Okdek, enumeration of kinds of, 

97. 
Orderliness, sign of, 95, 98. 
Organization, primal fact of, 61. 
Organism, standpoint of, 73. 
Osborn, H. F., 79. 

Palet, 4. 
Pantheism, 175. 
Parasitism, 198. 
Parker, T. J., 14, 103. 
Pascal, 133. 
Pearson, K., 86. 
Perfection, principle of, 228. 
Personality, acquisition of, 170. 

conception of, 175. 

meaning of advent of, 179. 

specialization of spiritual en- 
ergy, 171. 

theories of origin of, 171. 
Physiology, chemical, 77. 
Plants, resemblances to animals, 
15. 

sensation in, 15. 
Plateau, P., 146. 
Play, origin of, 123. 

perversion of, 125. 

utility of, 124. 



Pleasure, growth of vital capacity 
of, 118. 

increase over pain, 120. 
Principles, of nature, continuity of, 
24, 158. 

importance of, 6. 
Progress, of evolution, theories of, 
241. 

signs of, in history, 130. 
Prophecy, natural principle of, 250, 

253. 
Protamceba, 168. 
Protococcus, 168. 
Protoplasm, continuity of, 72. 

structure of, 29. 
Protozoa, 64, 205. 

Providence, in the least and the 
greatest, 59. 

in timing events, 73. 

in development of cells, 68. 

Quality, throughout nature, 109. 

Radiolarian, 224. 

Reason, unifying principles of, 

24. 
Redemption, natural law of on 
higher plane, 219. 
Christian doctrine of, 219. 
Reformative power, 212. 
Regeneration, diminution of power 
of, 209, 215. 
in personal life, 216. 
mechanics of natural, 214. 
moral continuance of, 218. 
of lost parts, 208. 
physiological, 217. 
Reid, C. A., 216. 
Responsibility, entrance of moral, 

200. 
Retrogression, fact of, in evolution, 
193. 
Galton's law of, 195. 
involved in variation, 194. 
provided for in progress of 
evolution, 202. 



INDEX 



281 



Kevelation, in the cell, 27. 

in human history, 47. 

method of, 26, 38, 39, 41. 

natural principles of, 46. 
Romanes, G. J., 102, 129, 177. 
Roux, W., 211. 
Ruskin, John, 1,53. 

Sacrifice, and service, relation of, 
224. 

diminishing necessity of, 224. 
Sandeman, G., 139. 
Schleiden, 13. 
Schwann, 13. 

Science, epochs in relation of to 
Faith, 2. 

modesty of true, 8. 

prophetic principle of, 251. 
Selection, sexual, 135. 
Sensitiveness, growth of, 117. 

of living matter to light, 42. 
Sentiency, animal, 168. 

increase of, 169. 
Service, law of increase of, 224. 
Sex, disappearance of, 191. 

first traces of, 65. 
Shaler, N. S., 18, 139, 147, 165, 

237. 
Simroth, H., 148. 
Sin, possible in evolution, 201. 

remoter good from history of, 
204. 
Siphonophores , 66. 
Slime-moulds, development of, 75. 
Smyth, N., 27, 191, 270. 
Son of man, reveals power of life, 
267. 

his will to live unconquerable, 
270. 
Soul, connection with body at birth 

and death, 263. 
Species, death of, 191. 

preservation of, 184. 
Spencer, Herbert, 5, 123, 167. 
Spirit, coming age of, 261. 

priority of, 177. 
Spirogyra, 150, 167. 



Stimulation, organic response to, 

87. 
Strassen, O. L. zur, 76. 
Substitution, in nature, 211. 

in theology, 223. 
Sufferings, of animals, 121. 
Symbiosis, 224. 

Theology, natural, need of new, 

3, 9. 
Thomson, J. A., 79, 124, 212. 
Titon, 210. 

Trembley, Abbe, 208. 
Truth, love of, 1. 
Tyler, J. M., 240. 
Tyndall, J., 153. 

Ugliness, reason for, 151. 

tendency to remove, 152. 
Unity, genetic, 12, 22, 80. 

of vegetable and animal king- 
doms, 14. 

of creation, 1 1 . 

spiritual, 23, 180, 273. 

Vamptrella Spirogyrce, selection 

of matter by, 167. 
Variations, cause of, 243. 

transmission of, 81. 
Varieties, useful in man's condi- 
tions, 254. 
Verworn, M., 18, 115, 166, 167, 247, 

248. 
Vicariousness, naturalness of, 223. 
in Christian redemption, 223. 
Vital value, characteristics of, 
104. 
increase of, in history, 129. 
law of increase of, 103. 
Vorticellidoi, 138. 

Wallace, A. R., 121, 122, 136, 140, 
144, 145, 151, 245, 256. 

Walton, Izaak, 129. 

Ward, J., 50, 111, 177, 236, 249. 

Wealth, increase of moral use of, 
130. 



282 



INDEX 



Weismann, 81, 82, 187. 
Whittier, J. G., 264. 
Will, limit of the, 221. 

the will to live, 268. 
Wilson, E. B., 16, 19, 71, 72, 76, 

88, 89. 
Wolff, C. F., 1. 



Wolff, G., 210. 
Wordsworth, William, 46. 

Yucca moth, the, 184, 233. 

Zooids, 65. 

Zoothamnium arhuscula, 64. 



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